Two Halves

You tap with a knuckle, the way you would on a door you suspect is already open. Three taps, nothing. On the fourth the block gives, not the way ice breaks but the way a latch does. You feel it in your teeth.

The compressor stops for as long as that takes. Then it hums again, a half step lower.

The card has come apart along a line you could not see. Two halves, dry, no frost on either, as if the cold had stepped aside to let them by.

The left half says: Come to the.

The right half says: and burn it.

On the back of each, half of a thumbprint, blue, the whorls running the wrong way. You lay your own thumb beside it. The print is smaller than yours. It is the size yours was.

You do not decide which half is the beginning. You write down the word SPLIT. You put a half in each pocket. The left is heavier.