downward · all seasons · beaufort 1

the chimney wind

when a wind crosses a roof at the right angle it does not pass over the chimney; it goes in, and down, and arrives in a fireplace on the second floor with the smell of the night. this is the chimney wind. it is not weather; it is the building re-breathing what the weather had finished with.

it carries soot, in small invisible quantities, into the parlour. it carries the smell of cold tile, of last winter's fire, of the ash that nobody quite swept. on a still day, a sheet of letter-paper set on the hearth is found, after an hour, sixteen inches further into the room. on a wild day it slams the flue's small iron damper, once, like a question.

indoors it sounds like a low note held in a bottle. footsteps in the chimney are usually the chimney wind. small rituals kept at the hearth are believed to be heard, somewhere upstairs, by the wind itself.

field note · ii · we tied a length of black thread across the fireplace mouth in november. by morning it had been moved, by the chimney wind, into a single neat knot. it is, of course, still up there.

kettle · passage · white · ash · atmospheres