[Spoken Word] Every house is a room that isn't on the plans in mine the builders counted twelve and they were not wrong the thirteenth was still waiting to be made when the fever killed me in the winter of 1896 my wife couldn't afford a burial she laid me inside a hollow wall beside the staircase and sealed it with plaster I remember the scrape of her trowel I have heard every family who lived here since and every night at 2:17 I have heard the house move not much at first a fingernail's width a hallway a little shorter a bedroom a little narrower then a young boy began listening at the wall where I lay he said someone inside was whispering his name his mother laughed until she heard it too who's there something slid past my bones and from the other side of the plaster came an answer there's room for one more the boy's bedroom began to shrink by the end of the week its window was gone his mother insisted the room had never had one on Christmas Eve the boy went to sleep in that shrinking room at 2:17 I heard the frame begin to buckle by dawn its doorway was barely wide enough for a hand by morning there was only a smooth wall where his room had been the boy his bed his toys all gone his mother never asked where he was she could no longer remember having a son but every evening she still set a little plate at the table then she would stare at it and put it away you see that is what the thirteenth room does it does not merely swallow people it takes away the space they occupied and the memory that space was ever there only I remember I was sealed inside before the house learned to feed perhaps the dead are harder to digest now look around you does the wall seem a little closer don't measure it the house can hear you counting
