The Call

In the poem the souls speak first: they notice that one of the two throws a shadow and breathes, and they stop him. In the game it is one rule, and it starts with the first soul who speaks in the dark wood: whoever has not had an answer out of you calls out on his own within fifteen metres, about every ten seconds, and says the first piece of what he has to say. It is there so that they can be found, because before it a damned soul standing still in a dark valley was met only by walking into him, and it changes how a dark place is crossed: you go towards the voices.

A call is the first piece and not the speech: it is cut at the first full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or semicolon, and if none of them arrives early it is cut at forty seven characters anyway. It goes quiet while you are talking to him, because otherwise it would talk over itself, and it does not call again straight after you have closed the colloquy without answering, because somebody who has just spoken to your face does not call you back an instant later. From the moment you have answered, however you answered, it stops for good. And whoever will not give his name in any case, and has to have it taken by force, now says so with his own throat instead of with a line on the screen.