The Townsfolk

Publicly decisive and privately arithmetic — she has now had a unit of The Standing disappear without a customer, which is the count going wrong in her own kitchen, and she has decided to believe she miscounted.

Shaken in a specific and contained way — the line came out before he decided to let it, and that loss of editorial control over his own words is new and sits uneasily.

Gruff and purposeful — first frost is his territory and he is pleased to be in it.

Precise and increasingly aware that precision is no longer containment — the second box on the shelf is an admission she has been trying not to make.

Still steady, but she heard the sixth line and is carrying it now, the way you carry a thing someone gave you that you didn't ask for and cannot put down.

At peace with the limits of her instruments. The chart is complete. She has stopped waiting for an explanation and started watching for the resolution.

Quietly shaken by the rabbit and the drake — two new returned he cannot account for — but holding the line of the column, precise and controlled.

Settled and unreadable — she has done the thing, put the letter away, and returned the sleeve, and considers the morning's business complete in a way that does not invite follow-up.

Mildly unsettled in a way he is managing by means of the scarf, which is now around his neck and is a concrete resolution in a morning that had too few of them.