Ben Segal
In the felt room is a softer spot in the soft of the whole. There is a slot there for the cards that poke out each morning and afternoon.
The morning card is Tongue Exercise
So the morning was for flexing and stretching, for folds.
Afternoon was another easy one, Sitting Still. It was a common card. A favorite.
At night the four people in the felt room slept side by side without touching.
In the morning the card said Diamond Mining and the four people who live in the felt room switched on their helmet lamps and entered the mine shaft. They carted diamonds to the softer spot in the soft whole of the felt room and pressed the diamonds to the slot, which was warm and wet, which one of them swore was pulsed with breath, which one of them swore tasted right. The afternoon card read Handcuff Game and that took the four of them to night.
The slot in the softer spot of the soft of the felt room is not mouth or vagina.
The four residents of the felt room are not me and not distinct.
The felt room is not heaven or otherwise afterlife. The felt room is not womb or otherwise before life.
The felt room has a relation to life that is best described as non-coinciding.
The four residents slept the night head to foot to head to foot to head to foot to head to foot and not touching at all.
The slot in the morning gave a card that read Waltz and the four residents of the felt room waltzed four hours on the sponged and sinking surface of the felt room floor.
The evening card read Diamond Mining and diamonds were brought in heaps from the deep and glittering shaft.
Night in the felt room has four sleeping bodies non-coinciding.
The felt room does not have coincidence. The felt room is not a photograph but is punctured by a punctum, a slot in the softest spot of its soft self. The felt room can be said to have a self.
Anything can be said of the felt room but that does not make it true. But that does not make it false. But that does not make it false or true. But that does not make it false and or true.
The felt room can be said to have a mouth or vagina but the felt room doe not have mouth or vagina.
Or the slot of the soft of the soft of the felt room is not mouth or vagina.
The morning card read Vomit and the vomit that the four residents of the felt room vomited they vomited into the slot in the soft of the soft of the felt room because that was not where they slept at night. They vomited in the slot of the soft of the soft because they did not want to vomit in the diamond mine because they used their hands there, roughly, to pry loose those stones.
The afternoon card did not say Escape because no card would say Escape because that would not mean anything in the felt room.
The afternoon card said Sitting Still and smelled faintly of vomit.
At night the four residents of the felt room touched finger to finger to finger to finger.
No.
At night the four residents of the felt room almost touched finger to finger to finger to finger and felt in the small air between finger and finger a pressure or thicker air that was almost skin.
The felt room has a pressure or thicker air that at night is almost skin.
If the air in a room, in any room, would thicken in just the right way and become not just almost skin but skin, then the the air in the room would be flesh and no longer fit for breathing.
Then instead of molding each moment to the inside of lungs, the air would instead mold flesh perfectly to flesh, then the air would catch and cast each body enroomed exactly. And if then the bodies in the room in which the air had thickened perfectly to skin were then removed from such a room, then what would be left would be airless cavities that were the exact absences of those gone bodies.
