The Fool
Portrait
The One Who Goes Out Half-Packed
The bag never got finished. What was missing turns up somewhere past the door.
The bag was opened the night before and left that way. In the morning it goes over one shoulder exactly as it was, and the door closes on a room that still has half of it lying out.
Shoes get tied with the door held open. Closing it first would mean opening it again, and that second opening always runs longer than it should.
Not much goes in. Things go in and come back out, and the list written the night before stays heavier than what actually leaves the house. Whatever is missing can be bought there, or borrowed.
The map stays on for a while and then goes off. Walking usually turns something up. Dead ends happen, and so does passing the same shopfront twice.
The packing stops half done at night, and the bag goes out that way in the morning.
Nothing gets said before the departure, and one photo goes out after arriving.
The map gets switched off, and the alley ends at a wall that has to be walked back out.
Two boxes from the move sit in the corner four months later.
When it ends, only one person's things leave the room.
What stays behind is usually a sentence. Something said on the way out that could mean it has ended, or could mean it hasn't. Nothing in it settles.
Whoever stays holds that sentence for a while with nowhere to put it. It does not get thrown out and it does not get answered.
Light is the word that tends to stay attached. What was light was the load carried out. What got set down stayed where it was set down.
The record here does not start at the door. It starts in the room the next morning.
Understanding
The One Who Leaves the Boxes Closed
In some rooms, a box from the move has never once been opened.
What is inside the box is roughly known. Knowing it has not been enough to open it. The urgent things came out first, and what stayed was everything that could wait — which is why it kept waiting.
At the next move the box gets loaded still sealed. It finds a corner in the new room. A second box joins it.
Something similar shows up in the way closeness is handled. What goes unsaid gets set in the same place, and travels sealed to the next room, the next person. When a conversation runs long, the words "let me walk for a minute" tend to come from near that corner.
Saying it was never opened is rare. What gets said instead is that it ran out, or that someone else took it. After that nobody asks again, and the shelf keeps what it kept. No day has come when that shelf got opened.
Remaining question: What is resting on top of that box right now.