one minute of yours, idle, on the stair·001

half a thought, unfinished, at the window·002

a name half-remembered·003

a coin you did not spend·004

three seconds before the kettle·005

a forgotten kindness, on credit·006

a small lie, declared·007

the ledger mouse

mus tabulator · order accountantia

the ledger mouse keeps an account of small things forgotten by the houses it lives in. it works through the night with a nib too small for any human hand and a column of ink it draws from no inkwell anyone has found.

each entry is precise. its handwriting is the careful italic of a junior clerk in 1908. at quarter-day it totals the columns, and any balance you owe — to your past selves, to absent relatives, to a memory — is filed away in the basement snail's shell.

it does not collect debts. it is an archivist, not a bailiff. in the errata rooms it has been seen underlining; in catalogues, never.

— the column was longer in the morning than it had been when i looked away. — bookkeeper.

errata memory number catalogue