Weak Tea

East of the highway the laundromat has no sign. In the front room the washers stand in a row with their doors open and nothing in them. In the back room the dryers are gone, and their vents stand along the wall, silver ducts that go up through the ceiling.

On a folding table, between two copper plates, lies a square of film no bigger than a coaster, the color of weak tea. A strip of tape on the table's edge says WALNUT CREEK. A voltmeter is clipped to the plates, and its needle sits at zero. A stool stands at the table, and on the voltmeter a note is propped: Back soon. A.

You lean over the table and breathe out. The needle lifts a hair and settles.

On the sill under the one high window a radio hisses between two stations; on its dial glass, at a pencil mark, someone has written Central. Through the window a brown thread of smoke stands straight up over the roofs. Beside the voltmeter lies a gray notebook, its last leaf folded back.