inscription · chapel floor · third slab from the altar
ledger stone · 18th c. · letterer J. brand
a name walked across by every congregation for two centuries. you stand on it without meaning to. you are presently walking on it, in a sense; the floor of the chapel is everywhere here.
what remains of the name is — Elias Morley, perhaps, though the catalogue hesitates. of the dates, the first two digits of each. of the verb under them, only the c and the a are confidently legible; the rest is read from habit. the requiescat has done its work.
the centre of the slab is two centimetres lower than the edges. this is the difference a hundred and ninety years of polite feet will make. the letters survive only where the hem of a robe used to drag.
field-note · stand at its edge to read. the centre has read enough.
see also · chapel forget memory catalogue threshold stone