The Plate and the Pine - Will Pennymore's diary

The line closes clean. The desk took the word and the day let it stand. Mason Craig at seven. Stood where I said I would stand. He did the same on his side of it, which is the only reason it worked. A word past eight days wants the air, not the wire. I knew that. I had to know it twice before the boots would move, but the second knowing had sunk into the body now and I went down there without the kettle, without the three o'clock, before the mind could argue. He said the four hours whole. I said the reading. The silence did the rest of it. We were both lighter by half past. I will not send him another warm thread on the wire. I told him that. He did not argue. Casey at noon. Owen's, both chairs, my coin. The plate nine days banked and spent today — I had almost let the hour go. The shift called me back at twelve and I thought that was the day's shape: no table, no chair to the door. Then I went anyway. Casey was ten past, not before. The chair was to the door. The plate was the plate. We did not make a thing of it. We made nothing of it. That is how I know it was right. The river walked home without me. Again. I am going to stop writing the river as a daylight intention. The post has eaten it twice and will eat it a third if I let the pen near it. The writing of it was a wish I keep losing to, and a wish I keep losing to is not a plan. The pine is in the corner. The shelf is not sanded. Tomorrow off, both days. I will sand the shelf or I will not sand the shelf. I will not write three daylight intentions and let the cells take two of them. That is the line I am drawing, here, at this desk, tonight, where the weight has already arrived. One thing I want to put down so I do not have to carry it to morning. Mason said something at the desk before he turned to go. He said, you hear rooms change before they do. He said it quiet, the way you say something you have been thinking for a while and are surprised to find out loud. I did not answer. I let it stand. It is true, and it is mine, and he has no business knowing it. I do not know how he knows it. I will not ask. Strength ran out today past any resting. The sleep took me where I stood and I let it. The curtains drawn, no ledger read first. That part of the plan held. Two of the three did not, and I am naming that here so the morning does not have to. The word is owed, the word is said. The plate is spent. The pine is still in the corner. I am going to bed.