four · from the visitor's book
A signature is one of the smaller pieces of writing a person ever does, and one of the most consequential. From the same hand: a letter to a friend, a will, a cheque, a registry — the marks look almost the same but the world treats them differently.
The visitor's book in the front hall has, by now, more than two hundred signatures. Many are illegible. Some are clearly false. One is a small drawing of a fish. The keeper is content to host all of these without verification.
field note · the most beautiful signature in the book belongs to a child who came in 1968 and wrote it ten times, each one larger than the last.