corridor · third from the east wall · pine
pine, eight feet long, two cut nails on the east end and a knot shaped like a closed eye at one-third along. it is the board that complains when you cross the corridor at night; every household keeps one.
the floor was laid green, before the timber had finished drying, so each board is slightly shorter than its neighbours intended. a gap has opened along the south edge; a sixpence fell in eight years ago and is still there, audible to no one. the snail beneath passes over it on certain evenings.
field-note · step on the knot. the sound is older than the rest of the board.
above it goes the parquet; around it runs the skirting; its small voice is in creak.