:::plots

They built it in polished light.
Marble without residue.
Doors that closed cleanly.

His desk faced intake.

A girl becomes a coordinate.
He writes it down.

A boy becomes a favor owed.
Entered without comment.

Columns hold.

In the high ceilings,
echoes flatten before returning.

The clerk pauses -
ink hovering over a line
that will not look back at him.

He presses.

The ink beads.
Spreads sideways.

He presses again.

Carbon smears through three sheets.
The second slips out of register.

He squares the stack,
taps it once -
again -

until the edges align.

In the rear-view mirror later,
a face appears -

then resolves
into nothing he records.

He adjusts the glass
to road.

Back at the desk,
the column has shifted.

A digit out of place.

He checks.
Again.

Still there.

He draws a line through it -
clean -

The mark breaks.

Ink clots at the nib.

He lowers it again.

The paper buckles.
Will not take.

His wrist rests on the page.

When he lifts it,
there is ink there -

ordinary -
the same black.

He wipes it
under the desk.

It does not lift.

He presses harder,
as if pressure will move it through.

It stays.

The stack will not square.

One corner rises.

He taps it flat.
It rises.

Again.

He holds it down
until the edges bite his palm.

When he lets go,
it lifts.

Beneath his wrist,
the same motion -

returning
again
again
:::