The Fifth Touch

The card is taped to the outside of the ice house window, at the height of your chest, with frost over most of it. In the middle there are four clear thumbprints, side by side. Each is wider than the one before.

You put your thumb on the card. The prints run together and open to the corners, and the frost draws back out of them.

It reads: Ice to the bar by two every afternoon, please. Come around the back. In the corner that was last to clear, in a smaller hand: P.S. Bring the split one too.

The card will stay clear an hour. Then the frost starts back in from the edges, and nine hours after your thumb it will be closed again. Someone will have to come by.

The hand truck stands by the wall with its top bag split, and across the lot the back door of the bar is propped open.