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What kept her eyes open was not the muscles in her
head but an interest in everything about her. Every
day, something new, or something she knew from
the day before. Stare at it long enough and her hand
would move; only when touched would it come into
focus. If it wasn’t accompanied by volume she would
touch it again. Touching something twice plus
volume was to know what it meant to ignore it, and
never again would she touch it.


There were times of darkness and two times of light.
Sometimes inside there was no light, except the
light from the outside, which she preferred. It made
her happy, sleepy, though not enough to stop her.


Outside light was sometimes shade, but she knew
it connected to the warmth she preferred. Not the
blanket it made when the house turned on but touch
from the ball in the sky.


Softly it came, in patterns, making everything more
than it was without. When it was not shade, outside
light had a different skin, and sometimes it was too
much. She would try to move, always to where it
wasn’t. Given less room meant she was bathed in the
light inside, where she slept.



Places were not on or off, nor were there two kinds
of off. There was movement from behind the
outsides, like the house turning on, and the night-
coloured thing with bells that stopped when it
touched a head. The box with the world inside and
boxes that called without pictures. Finally, the room
where the tweet lived, until it lay still, after which it
was taken down and disappeared, with nothing to
hang in its place.