Seven Fourteen

The last of the light goes. The creek slows and stops. The lanterns in the shallows stop together, and the leaves between them. Along the bank every dog sits down. On the footbridge rail the grackles go quiet in the middle of an argument and wait with their heads tilted.

The water leans upstream for the length of one breath. Every lantern in the shallows slides a hand's width against the way it was going. Your tag turns once on its wire, in no wind, and settles with the number toward the creek.

In a window over the water a paper lantern with basil pressed to its ribs gives one low note, an E. Nobody has sung. You have not made a sound.

The creek goes back to what it was doing. Below you on a root the man has the ledger open on his knee. He writes the minute, 7:14, and 037 answered, and stops with the pencil lifted. Then he looks along the bank at your light and writes 248. Above it the page is all no one.