Three Hands

The cube sits on the curb in the shade of an oak, an inch on a side, its edges rubbed bright.

The first person to stop is a man in a hi-vis vest. He picks it up in his glove, and then takes the glove off. He holds it out into the sun at arm's length and back into the shade. Cold in the sun, he says, and warm in the shade. He sets it down.

A woman with a stroller stops. She was across the street when he said it. She puts two fingers on the cube and says the same words in the same order. A boy retying his shoe reaches over, touches it, and says them to the shoe.

The man in the vest has not gone. He is looking at the cube and not at you. That's the one, he says. I was on the backhoe. Fourth day, it came up in the bucket in a lump of red clay with the tunnels all through it. The lot's still open on South Congress, behind the cones. Nobody's built on it.