small · sitting room · last swept after long rain
the bay folds outward in three flat panes that look onto nothing in particular — a low wall, a shrub of unknown habit, the corner of a slate roof. beneath them runs a hinged seat, padded once with horsehair and re-padded twice with whatever was nearest. one cushion. one folded shawl whose colour is no longer agreed.
under the seat are: two postcards never sent, a wooden spool of plum thread, a pencil-stub, and a ribbon. in the centre pane's lower-left corner a hairline crack has grown by a quarter-inch in the years since the keeper began to measure it.
the cat sleeps along the cushion in the warm hour after lunch. a child kneels on the seat with palms flat against the glass and watches the slow weather. the keeper sits here for the last half of a long letter, and the light fails before the letter is finished.
field-note: the seat is half a degree cooler than the room around it, even when the rain has been blowing for hours against the panes.