The Chute, Again
The ice house closes at two. You stay. Someone has to watch the machine make ice, and it is you.
At 3:10 a block comes down the chute with a card inside it, the way a fly gets into amber. It is warm on one side, as if someone had just let go. Cream stock. Handwriting like your own, exactly.
Frost has grown over the words. It is November somewhere. It is always November in the chute, and tonight it is also a little June.
In the one corner you can read: Whoever gets it has to thaw it. And below, in a smaller hand, new: Thank you.
You are whoever. You have always been whoever. It is what the job is.
The compressor hums a note you have heard before. This time you know where.
- Press your thumb to the glass.
- Put the card in your apron, and go.
- Walk up the avenue, instead, to the block of doors. Found under the door “The dragonfly is a first draft that worked.”
The book · Colophon and credits
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