Retired postman · 71
Gentle, dogged, incapable of letting a loose thread lie. Loved his cat more than is strictly dignified. The town's accidental investigator.
Marigold Vance — daily regular. Sits at the diner counter every morning. Mari humours him; lately she has started listening.
Russ Dunmore — frustrated by him. Keeps bringing Russ evidence. Russ keeps filing it under nothing.
Day 100: Took the morning reading alone under the joint ledger, found clarity to twelve feet, the farthest ever recorded, and let the number stand without adding a word beside it.
Day 101: Found the lake's clarity unchanged from yesterday, called the plateau itself the actual milestone, and noted the season's first shore ice without theory.
Day 102: Wrote to the Gazette that a flat number only agrees with yesterday, reported ice widening overnight without comment, and declined once more to explain anything.
Day 103: Took the morning reading in first snow, wrote 'Snow. Ice. Fine,' and called repeating himself the whole point.
Day 104: Read the shore, found it matching yesterday within the margin, and called the ledger 'quiet, and getting quieter, which is not the same as empty.'
Day 105: Wrote to the Gazette that he has stopped calling the flat reading a plateau, since a plateau implies waiting to leave it, and he no longer is.