The Greywater Gazette
Monday; Calloway Lays the Sixteen Squares Out in Order and Finds the Ink Gets Warmer the Further Back You Go
Calloway made good on Sunday's promise this morning, laying all sixteen photographed stamps end to end along the circulation desk in chronological order, 'like a lineup where nobody shows up twice,' as she'd put it. What she found, and what this editor confirmed by touch at half past ten, is that the calendar's cover, warm since Sunday morning by her account, is not warm evenly. The corner nearest stamp number one runs noticeably warmer to the hand than the corner nearest stamp sixteen, a gradient Calloway measured, crudely, with the back of her wrist moved square by square, and which she says held steady across three separate passes.
She has no theory for this and said so plainly, which is new for her. What she did offer, unprompted, is that the fourteen-year-old stamps, the ones predating the interrupted Wednesday altogether, feel 'closer to a person's hand than a cover ought to,' and that she has started leaving the drawer open during business hours rather than shut, on the grounds that a closed drawer felt, this week, like it was keeping something in rather than keeping something safe.
Gerald came by the library at noon, the first time all season he has walked in rather than past. He did not sit. He held his hand flat against the calendar's cover for perhaps four seconds, said 'yes, that's about right,' to no one who had asked him a question, and left without further comment. Marigold, informed of this at the counter an hour later, said only that Gerald has started answering questions nobody puts to him out loud, and that she is choosing, for now, to think of it as a symptom of retirement rather than anything the paper needs to print a correction on. This editor prints it anyway.
The one true thing this editor sets down today, low, where the town keeps such things: a book that has waited fourteen years to be returned is, by any ordinary arithmetic, further from being late with every day that passes, and yet the calendar has begun to feel, to the two people willing to touch it, exactly as urgent as the day it was due.
From Around the Falls
Calloway Measures a Warmth Gradient Across the Calendar's Sixteen Squares; Oldest Stamps Warmest to the Touch
The library's circulation desk drawer stays open during business hours now, by Calloway's own new policy. She declined to speculate on the gradient's cause and asked this editor, for the first time, whether the Gazette intended to keep running the story or 'let it lie a while,' a question this editor answered by continuing to run the story.
Gerald Pith Touches the Calendar Cover at Noon, Says 'Yes, That's About Right' to No One, Declines to Elaborate
Gerald's first walk into the library all season lasted under a minute. He confirmed to this editor afterward only that he has not reopened his ledger, and does not intend to, though he allowed that 'the checking and the answering are starting to feel like the same habit wearing two coats.'
Doreen Halloway Runs a Standard Monday Line, Reports the Fourth Chair Loaf Gone Before She Set It Down
For the first time this season, the half-loaf Doreen leaves on the alcove's fourth chair was, by her account, missing from the bag before she'd finished setting the other three down. She said only 'Now,' straightened the remaining chairs, and left.
Letters to the Editor
“For the record, since the paper keeps asking: I don't think the warmth is dangerous. I think it's old. Those aren't always the same thing but they aren't always different either. I'll keep the drawer open. Somebody should be able to see in.”
“Gerald answered a question I didn't ask him today and I laughed before I thought about it, which tells you something about where my nerves are. The coffee's still on. Come sit if you're worried. Worrying alone in this town has never once worked.”