Auralis: small accounts
The Quiet Catalogue
The catalogue began with small things: red chalk, an empty jar, and a cooper's glove left on a windowsill. The keeper said the ledger of borrowed chairs could wait until morning, but rain was already touching its corners.
Three notes lay behind the clock. One described a street by its smell after rain; another counted the steps between two doorways; the third recorded an argument about a broken hinge. None agreed on the colour of the morning.
A row of sealed jars occupied the lowest shelf. The paper beside them described a room nobody had remembered to light.the unlit storeroom
The porter placed the parcel registry beside a length of copper wire and left before anyone had found a scale.
The folded sheet also referred to the folded workshop index, where somebody had counted tools by the spaces they left behind.
The river outside sounded closer than it looked. A small bell rang somewhere in the building, although the keeper was certain nobody had touched its cord.