stair landing · brass plate · bakelite rotary
a small black lever on a brass back-plate at the height of an elbow. bakelite, slightly oily to the touch. it clicks one way for on, the other for off, with the certainty of an instrument that does not compromise.
it controls the single bulb above the landing, the one that has always been there and will be there. someone has thrown it on their way up and forgotten to throw it on their way down, twice this week, so the building waited up in their place. the click is the building's smallest knock on itself.
field-note · throw it slowly, halfway. neither on nor off; a state the lamp does not believe in. the lamp will not perform it.
its bulb is on a different errand; its hour is midnight; its station is the stairs.