— note · iv · the pad

left · unknown hour · the hall table

a note, mid-sentence

if you read this before

supper, will you put

the kettle on. i am

going as far as the

post-box and then

i thought i would also

the note breaks at i thought i would also. the writer is presumed to have left the room — perhaps because the post-box, in this season, is the kind of thing one departs for before remembering an extra errand; perhaps because, at the kitchen window, something passed and was worth looking at. the pen, in any case, has been put down.

a note ended mid-sentence carries a different weight than a note properly closed. it is unfinished business in the most domestic sense — a sentence the day is still expected to finish. when the writer returned the kettle was, as instructed, on. nothing more was added. the sheet was left on the pad and the next day it was, by another hand, turned over for a shopping list.

every household has a stack of unfinished phrases the writers cannot now finish, the readers cannot now check. the dash is also a kind of door.

back soon apology unfinished lacuna word

atlas · return