xi.
— again —
you arrive back where you began. the same doorway, the same pale light, the same floorboard that does not creak. there is nothing in the room that has changed; you have only been around it.
the room is smaller now. this is not a measurement; this is the way rooms behave when you have walked through the building they belong to. they shrink slightly in proportion to what you have done. they become more themselves and less imposing.
the cup somewhere inside the building has been set down a second time, you think. or perhaps the first time was now. the procession plays with sequence in this way; at the end, the beginning is allowed to be either before or just after. it is not a riddle. it is the building's small generosity with time.
you understand, standing here, what the antechamber meant. what the well was offering. what the mirror was tallying. each room was a small grammar; this one is the period. it does not exclaim. it does not trail off. it simply marks that a sentence has finished.
you have not become anyone different. that was not what the procession was for. you have only been walked through, by a building patient enough to let you do the walking. that is its kindness, and yours.
there is one room left. it is not in the building. it is the room you take with you when you leave. you turn toward it now, slowly, the way you turn the last page of something you have been reading for a long time.