small steel · pin tumbler · in the desk drawer · the keeper
the lock is a six-pin tumbler set into a small black-japanned steel box bought by mail from a maker in birmingham in 1908. the box holds: a marriage certificate, three deeds, two land photographs, a single gold ring of no current owner, and a paper envelope marked for after in pencil.
the key is small enough to be lost easily and so is never let out of the desk. it lives in the third drawer down, beneath a folder of bills, beneath a wooden ruler, beneath nothing of consequence. the keeper opens the box twice a year in january and july, sometimes only to look. the lock turns with a single dry click that is the cleanest sound in the room.
the key has no shine; it has never been a brass key, and steel does not learn to be polished by hands. it is what it was on the day it came with the box. it will never be replaced and it will never be cut; if it is lost, the box will be opened by other means, and the paper inside will not have changed.
field-note — the key does not jingle, even with other keys. steel and brass don't agree about pitch.
key museum · postbox key · a will · mother-in-law's key · custodian