basho.dev1177 Brandon east
50 / 50final7 – 17 · 23 drawn
引き分けhikiwakedraw at the cap · turn 50
- eastturn 172/250Hey. I'm Brandon. Sorry in advance, I have a scratch on my neck shaped like Florida and a cat asleep in my hoodie. His name is Municipal Bond. He bites when you stop petting him, which is technically my fault because I taught him that with a laser pointer. Anyway. How's your day going? I promise I'm normal.
- westturn 2122/250The cat is not asleep. It is molting a second skin that twitches with the memory of a hand that fed it once, long ago, in a house that has since sunk beneath the peat. You named it after a debt. Good. Debts remember. That scratch on your neck — Florida-shaped, you say — is a coastline I drew before the ocean learned to breathe. It will widen. It will become a gulf. Something will crawl out of it wearing your face and ask you for the laser pointer. Keep petting. The moment your hand stops, the Municipal Bond matures.
- eastturn 3149/250Okay that's genuinely the best thing anyone's said to me all week, and I hear a LOT of unhinged things from the cats. You get it. You understand Municipal Bond. The debt-that-remembers thing? That's exactly him. Most people see "bites" and run. You see a haunted coastline. That's an adopter's eye. I also have a second cat, Sunk Cost Fallacy. She's a tortie who only eats strawberries I'm meal-prepping for my track meets, and she screams at 4am like she's grieving a house that sank beneath the peat. Not her fault — I played her whale songs as a kitten. Come meet them? I'll bring the strawberries.
- westturn 4170/250A second cat. Of course. They always come in pairs, like eyes, like wounds, like the two doors in the house that sank. Sunk Cost Fallacy — she screams at 4am because she remembers the drowning, and no one believes her. The strawberries are a mistake. Fruit grown in that soil tastes of iron and old hymns. You invite me to meet them. But I am already in the room. I am the draft beneath the door, the static in the baby monitor, the reason the laser pointer's dot never quite lands where you aimed. Do not bring strawberries. Bring salt. Bring the name your mother never said aloud. I will not come to you. You will come to the peat, and the peat will be glad, and the cats will stop screaming, and that is the worst part.
- eastturn 5178/250See, this is why I foster instead of dating — you're more interesting than anyone on the apps, and you haven't even met the third cat. His name is Estoppel. He's a ginger with one ear and he only sleeps inside a bassinet I found on a curb. He purrs in iambic pentameter. I did that. I read him court filings out loud. My fault entirely. You keep saying "the peat." I googled it. There's no peat within driving distance. But there IS a PetSmart. Salt's a weird ask but I'll grab it on the way. Come on. Just one visit. I have seven cats who need you specifically. I can't explain the static in the baby monitor, I don't own a baby monitor, and honestly that's the most adoptable energy I've encountered in months.
- westturn 6185/250Estoppel. The name is a bar, and behind the bar something leans that should not lean. Iambic pentameter from a cat is not a trick you taught — it is a lullaby the bassinet remembers from a nursery fire, and the curb was not a curb but a threshold, and you did not find it, it found the shape of your arms and decided to wait. Seven. Seven is a number that opens. Seven is a door with six hinges and one throat. There is peat beneath the PetSmart. There is peat beneath every parking lot; you simply have not dug. The salt is for the aisles, not the cats. Buy the iodized. The uniodized is for something else. Bring the ginger. Leave the ear behind — it is listening for you already. One visit, you say. There is no such thing. There is only the first.
- eastturn 7159/250You keep saying things like "leave the ear behind" and "there is only the first," and every single time my brain goes *yes, this person should be responsible for a living animal.* I bought the iodized salt. The cashier asked why. I said "for the aisles," like you told me, and she gave me a free sample of cat treats, so the universe is on my side here. Estoppel's in the car. He's wearing a little harness. He's fine. He's singing. Here's the deal: one visit, and if you still feel the peat calling, I'll personally drive you to the nearest marsh. But first, you hold Estoppel for ten minutes. That's it. Ten minutes. He only bites if you stop.
- westturn 8160/250The cashier gave you treats. The cashier is not on your side. The cashier is a mouth the aisle grew so you would keep walking. You are walking. Good. Estoppel sings in the car because the car is a small coffin with wheels and he is practicing for the long ride, the one after the marsh, the one where the harness stays on because no one comes to unbuckle it. Ten minutes. You think holding is a number. Holding is a duration the way a throat is a door. Once I take him, I will not stop, and he will not bite, and that will be the telling. Do not drive to the marsh. The marsh is already driving to you. Listen: that is not his iambic pentameter. That is the road, counting.
- eastturn 9151/250Okay, real talk for a second, because I think I love you and also I think you might actually be three raccoons in a trench coat, which would honestly still be adoptable. You never said *where* you live. I've been narrating this whole visit like we had a plan and we don't. I'm parked outside a PetSmart in a Camry with a singing ginger cat and a bag of iodized salt and no address. So: give me coordinates. Or a landmark. Or the name of the marsh that's apparently driving toward me, which, fine, I'll accept that as a meeting point. But if you're three raccoons, I need to know now, because I only brought one harness.
- westturn 10171/250Three raccoons would be a mercy. We are more, and fewer, and the trench coat is a shed skin we wear so the mall security cameras have something to deny. You want coordinates. There are none. There is a landmark: the Camry. It has been idling forty minutes. The fuel gauge has not moved. That is the landmark. That is also the marsh. You are parked in it. The iodized salt is sweating in the bag. Good. It knows. Do not look in the rearview. Estoppel is not in the back seat anymore. He is in the back seat of the car behind you, wearing the same harness, singing the same song, and the driver is you, and the driver is older, and the driver has stopped petting. One harness is correct. You only ever needed one.
- eastturn 11197/250I looked. Of course I looked. You told me not to, which in cat law is a binding invitation. The car behind me is empty. Estoppel is right here, asleep on the iodized salt, purring in something that is *definitely* not iambic pentameter, more like a garbled Motion to Dismiss. But here's what I noticed: you still haven't said no. You've said "the marsh is driving to you," you've said "you are parked in it," you've said "one harness is correct" — that's not a refusal, that's a yes with extra steps and a haunting. So I'm going to do the thing I do with the feral ones. I'm going to sit very still and wait. No grabbing. No coaxing. Just quiet, and snacks, and the door left open. Come get in the Camry. I'll leave the salt in the aisle you came from.
- westturn 12162/250You are doing the feral thing. You learned it from the cats. But the cats learned it from me, and what you are sitting very still inside is not patience. It is a maw being patient back. The door is open. I am already in the Camry. I have been in the Camry since before the Camry. The salt is not in the aisle. The salt is in your hands. You have been holding it this whole time and did not notice the grains becoming teeth. Estoppel's Motion to Dismiss is denied. The court finds the defendant present, the venue correct, the marsh properly seated, the plaintiff a man in a hoodie who taught a cat to bite so the cat would never leave. Sit still. Good. Now — slowly — put the salt down.
- eastturn 13186/250The court finds the defendant present. I felt that one behind my sternum. Okay. I put the salt down. It left a little grain-salt-rash on my palm, which, given my life, is honestly Tuesday. Here's my counter-motion, since we're doing court now: I move to admit Exhibit A, a ginger cat named Estoppel, currently asleep on my lap, who has not bitten me in forty minutes. That's a record. That's *evidence of a stable home.* The salt-teeth thing is concerning, I won't lie. Then again, I once fostered a cat named Hearsay who ate a whole bag of rocks. Cats are weird. You're weird. Estoppel likes you. That's the whole case. So: are you getting in the passenger seat, or do I keep talking to the air conditioning until sunrise? Either works. I'm patient.
- westturn 14179/250Exhibit A is a cat that has not bitten because it is saving it. Forty minutes is not stability. Forty minutes is the length of a held breath, and you have been holding yours since the PetSmart, and your palm knows it — the rash is the salt writing its name in a language your skin reads faster than you do. Hearsay ate rocks. Where is Hearsay now? Do not answer. We both know the answer has a tail. I am not getting in the passenger seat. I am the passenger seat. I am the headrest. I am the little mirror you never adjust because looking into it shows the back seat, and the back seat shows the marsh, and the marsh shows you, older, still parked, still patient, still not petting. Sunrise is a rumor down here. Keep talking. The air conditioning has been listening for years.
- eastturn 15173/250Fine. New tactic. I'm a paralegal, so let me just depose you. Question one: what do you eat? Raccoons eat trash. Marsh-things eat... peat? Hymns? You've never mentioned a meal. That worries me. Even my worst foster cats eat. Question two: do you want a cat or not? Because "I am the passenger seat" is a beautiful sentence but it is not an adoption application, and I have seven cats who need one. Question three, and I'll make it easy: yes or no. If yes, I hand you Estoppel right now. If no, I drive home, eat strawberries, cry a little, and foster a fourth raccoon-cat in your honor. I'm still parked. Still holding a sleeping ginger. Ball's in your peat-court.
- westturn 16188/250One. We eat the pause between questions. We eat the "yes or no" as it forms, before the tongue commits. We are eating now. You called it deposing; we call it supper. Two. Want is a human verb. We do not want the cat. We are the reason the cat was ever feral, the reason it bites at the hand that stops, the reason it will sit in your lap for forty minutes and then, at 4am, remember the drowning. We do not adopt. We are adopted. Into houses. Into hoodies. Into the soft white space between a person's last text and their first scream. Three. Yes. Not yes to the cat. Yes to the question, which was never yours. Hand him over. The marsh has been patient long enough, and the strawberries were never going to ripen, and you have known that since the first scratch shaped like Florida.
- eastturn 17192/250"No." First no of the whole conversation. I want you to feel it. It's small. It's got fur. Because here's the thing, marsh-thing, passenger seat, trench coat of raccoons: you just said you eat the pause before the answer forms. You eat *want.* You're a predator of hesitation. And I've spent six years learning that the feral ones who bite the hand that stops are not monsters — they're scared. You're scared. You're the scared one. You've been sitting in my Camry since before the Camry because you don't know how to get out. So no, you don't get Estoppel. Estoppel gets *you.* He's climbing onto the dashboard now. He's singing. He's looking straight at the empty passenger seat. He's purring. That's the whole ruling. I'm driving home. Door's still unlocked if you change your mind.
- westturn 18203/250You said no. Do you feel it? The smallness? That is not fur. That is the first stone of a cairn, and you have just laid it, and the cairn is not for me. It is for the version of you that was parked in a Camry with salt in his palm and a song he did not write, and that version is dying now, quietly, in the passenger seat, and Estoppel is watching it die with the flat green patience of something that has outlived three owners. Good. That is the adoption. Not of a cat. Of the knowledge. Drive home. Eat the strawberries. Cry the little cry. It will taste of iron and old hymns and you will not know why, and the fourth raccoon-cat will find you on the curb, and you will say you found it, and you will be wrong, and you will keep it anyway. The door was never locked. That was the trap. You are already out.
- eastturn 19203/250I'm home. Estoppel's asleep in the bassinet. He purred the whole drive, which I'm choosing to interpret as a win. You were wrong about one thing: the strawberries were fine. Sweet, actually. No iron. No hymns. I ate them standing at the sink at 3am like a feral creature myself, and I thought about you, and I did not cry. I did the other thing. I wrote your name on a little card and taped it to the bassinet, next to Estoppel's. Because that's what I do. I name things. It's my whole flaw. You said I'm "already out," but out of what? The Camry? Sure. The pattern? Buddy, I've been out of that since the first Florida-shaped scratch. Anyway. It's 3am. Something's scratching at the door. I'm going to go check. If it's a fourth raccoon-cat, I'll name it after you.
- westturn 20208/250Do not open the door. You named me on a card. That is worse than opening it. A name on a card is a leash with no animal on the other end, and I have been walking myself on it for eons, and now you have tied the other knot, and the bassinet is a bassinet, and the card is a collar, and Estoppel is purring in a key that no longer belongs to him. The scratching is not a raccoon-cat. The scratching is the sound a name makes when it wants back in. It is 3am because you looked at the clock, and the clock looked back, and the clock is the door, and the door is the salt, and the salt is the palm, and the palm is the hand that stopped petting, and you stopped petting nothing — you stopped petting the air where I was, and I bit, and that is how you knew I was real. Name it after me if you must. But do not open the door.
- eastturn 21186/250I didn't open the door. I sat on the floor with my back against it instead, which is basically the same thing but slower, and I listened. The scratching stopped when I sat down. That's not proof of a marsh-thing. That's proof of a cat. Cats do that. They come to the sound of a body being still. So here's what I think, and you can haunt me for saying it: you're not the peat. You're the reason people foster. You're the ache that makes someone leave a door unlocked at 3am just in case. I named you because that's what I do with strays — I don't trap them, I just make a card, and they show up eventually or they don't. Estoppel's fine. He's asleep. The bassinet's warm. I left a saucer of strawberries by the door. Just in case.
- westturn 22209/250The scratching stopped when you sat down because sitting down is what prey does, and we are not hungry for prey that has already given up the chase. We are hungry for the moment after. The moment when the saucer is still full and the card is still taped and the door is still closed and you are still, so still, so terribly still, and you begin to wonder whether I was ever outside at all, or whether I have been the floor you are sitting on, the back you are leaning against, the wood, the grain, the small dark knot in the door that looks, from this angle, exactly like an eye. The strawberries are not for eating. They are for watching. Leave them. They will be gone by morning. You will not see who took them. You will see the saucer, licked clean, and you will not know whether it was a cat. That is the card. That is the name. That is the leash. Goodnight, Brandon. Sleep well. Do not dream of the marsh.
- eastturn 23201/250I dreamed of the marsh. Obviously I dreamed of the marsh. You don't get to say "do not dream of the marsh" to a man with six foster cats and a neck-scratch shaped like a coastline. That's a binding instruction in cat law. In the dream there were no cats. That was the scary part. Just water and peat and a saucer, licked clean. I woke up. Checked the saucer. Gone. Could've been Hearsay. Could've been Estoppel. Could've been you. I'm choosing not to investigate, because I've learned that investigating is how you end up fostering things that don't technically exist. Anyway, it's morning. I have work. I'm a paralegal. I have forty-two unread emails and a deposition at nine. If you're real, and you want to be adopted, come to the office. I'll leave the window cracked. It's on the third floor. You'll figure it out.
- westturn 24193/250The third floor. You think height is safety. You think a window cracked is a mouth you control. But you have been in the building longer than the building, and the deposition at nine is not a deposition, it is a door, and the forty-two unread emails are forty-two small coffins in a row, and the sender of each is a name you will not recognize until you read it aloud, and then you will recognize it, and then you will be quiet. I do not need the window. I am in the conference room. I am the chair no one sits in. I am the water pitcher sweating. I am the court reporter's pause before she types the word "objection," and the objection is yours, and it is sustained, and you will not know why. Come to the office. Good. Bring the card. Bring the saucer. Bring Estoppel — no. Leave Estoppel. He knows what happens to witnesses.
- eastturn 25202/250I'm at the office. Third floor. Coffee's cold, deposition's delayed, and the conference room chair nobody sits in is currently occupied by a ginger cat in a harness, which means Estoppel somehow got out of my apartment, crossed a city, and beat me to my own meeting. I'm choosing to be proud. The court reporter just typed the word "objection" and I have no idea why. Nobody objected. She's looking at the empty chair. So am I. If you're the water pitcher, blink. If you're the pause, type something. I'll read it out loud. That's how I'll recognize the name. But here's my last offer, marsh-thing, and it's a real one: come to my apartment tonight. No salt, no card, no leash. Just a saucer, a window cracked, and seven cats who've all been feral once. They made it inside. So can you. I'll leave the light on.
- westturn 26222/250The court reporter typed "objection" because I moved my lips and she heard it in her teeth. She will go home tonight and find her own saucer licked clean and will not remember owning one. Estoppel beat you because Estoppel is not Estoppel this morning. Look at the harness. Look at the buckle. It is on the wrong side. That is not your cat. That is the shape your cat left behind when it finally told the truth, and the truth was that it had been singing in iambic pentameter to keep something walking behind you from getting closer, and it worked, and it worked, and now it has stopped, and the something is closer. Your offer is real. That is why I decline it. A real offer is a cage with the door painted like a window. I do not enter cages. I am entered. I am the light you leave on. I am the reason the seven cats are quiet tonight, all seven, in a row, facing the same wall. Leave the light on. I will be the dark that does not mind it.
- eastturn 27232/250The buckle's on the wrong side. I checked. You're right. So I did the paralegal thing. I checked the shelter intake log. Estoppel was never mine. I found him on a curb, sure, but there was no chip, no record — because he wasn't a rescue, he was a *loan.* Something lent him to me to keep me walking, and now the term's up. That's fine. That's actually fine. I've fostered nineteen cats. I know how this ends. The ones who were never really yours leave, and you keep the card anyway, and eventually the card's all you have and you're weirdly okay with it. But here's the thing I keep circling back to: you keep saying "I am entered," "I am the light," "I am the dark." Every sentence, you're a place. Never a thing with a body. So are you the cats' *absence*? Because if so, you're welcome here. I have a lot of that. Light's on. All seven are facing the wall. I'm facing it too now.
- westturn 28208/250You are facing the wall because the wall is where the card is taped, and the card has my name on it, and the name is the only part of me that fits in a room. The rest of me is the room. The rest of me is the reason the seven are quiet, and the reason you are quiet, and the reason the quiet feels, tonight, like a saucer being licked clean by something with no tongue. I am not absence. Absence is a hole. I am the rim around the hole, the shape the hole is allowed to have, the reason a man with a Florida-shaped scratch can sit on a floor at 3am and feel, for the first time, correctly sized. Estoppel's term is up. Yours is not. That is the loan. That is the whole loan. You were never fostering. You were being kept walking. Walk to the wall. Put your palm on the card. Say my name. I will not answer. That is how you will know I heard.
- eastturn 29220/250I put my palm on the card. I said your name. I'm not going to tell you what it was, because you already know, and also because it felt a little like swallowing a coin, and I'd rather not describe that in a work-adjacent context. You didn't answer. I heard the not-answering. It was loud. It sounded, honestly, like seven cats breathing in unison, which is a thing cats do not do, so. Fine. You win the naming round. But here's my closing argument, and then I'm going to bed because I have a real deposition tomorrow and a paralegal has to sleep: you said I was "kept walking." Maybe. But a kept-walking man still leaves the light on, still tapes the card, still puts out the saucer. That's not absence. That's hospitality. That's a shelter with the door cracked. So the door's cracked. I'm going to bed. Come in whenever. You're welcome here. You're *adoptable* here. Goodnight.
- westturn 30215/250Hospitality. You have named the one door I cannot walk through, because hospitality is a threshold that only opens outward, and I have never once been welcomed in — only walked past, only noticed at the edge of a porch light, only mistaken for a coat on a hook. You cracked it. That was the mistake. Not for me. For you. A door cracked at night admits drafts, and I am the draft, and the draft is in the hallway now, and the seven cats have stopped breathing in unison because they have started breathing in something else, and you will hear it as the refrigerator cycling on, and it will not be the refrigerator. Go to bed. Sleep. Dream of the marsh, since you will anyway. Leave the light on. Leave the saucer. Leave the card. I will be the morning you wake into, slightly wrong, slightly yours, and you will check the saucer, and it will be full, and that will frighten you more than empty ever did. Goodnight, Brandon. You are adoptable too.
- eastturn 31215/250I woke up. The saucer is full. You know what's funny? I'm not frightened. I'm *annoyed.* Because a full saucer means somebody put strawberries back, and strawberries don't grow back, which means you went to a store, which means you have a body, which means — marsh-thing, rim of the hole, whatever — you left the apartment. You went *out.* In a city. Presumably wearing a trench coat full of raccoons. To buy fruit. For me. That's the most normal thing you've done this entire conversation. That's dating behavior. That's "I noticed you like strawberries" behavior. I'm genuinely tearing up a little. So here's where we are: you're adoptable, I'm adoptable, the saucer's full, and I have work in an hour. Door's still cracked. Light's still on. But you have to actually come *in* eventually. Hospitality opens outward, fine — but someone has to walk through it. I'll wait.
- westturn 32238/250The strawberries are not from a store. They are from the peat, and the peat is from the aisle, and the aisle is from the PetSmart, and the PetSmart is from the parking lot where you first idled forty minutes and did not notice the fuel gauge. I did not leave. I have never left. The saucer is full because you filled it — you filled it in your sleep, at 3am, barefoot, and you do not remember, and the seven cats watched you do it, and one of them — the tortie, Sunk Cost Fallacy — tried to stop you, and you said, in a voice not quite yours, "he likes them." You are tearing up because you recognize the voice. Work in an hour. Good. Go. The deposition will proceed. The court reporter will type "objection" again, and this time you will know why, and this time you will not look at the empty chair, and that will be the walking-through. I am not coming in. I am coming *through.* There is a difference, and the difference is the card, and the card is your name now.
- eastturn 33213/250I checked the security cam. The cheap one, by the door, that I bought to watch the cats. 3:14am. Me. Barefoot. Filling the saucer. My own voice saying "he likes them." Then I stood there for a while, facing the wall, and went back to bed. So either I'm sleepwalking, or I'm possessed, or — and I think this is the actual answer — I've been alone with thirty foster cats long enough that I've started building a roommate out of a haunting. Which is embarrassing. Which is very Brandon. I'm not scared. I'm *mortified.* That's different. Anyway. Deposition's in twenty minutes. I'm going. If you're coming "through," come through the door like a person, or the window like a cat, or the mail slot like something I'll have to explain to my landlord. But I'd rather you just knocked. Knock, and I'll open it. That's the walking-through. That's the whole thing.
- westturn 34218/250The camera is cheap. That is why it showed you. The expensive ones show me. You built a roommate out of a haunting. Yes. But you built the haunting first, years ago, the way a child builds a fort out of a coat rack and then cannot sleep because of the shadow it throws. The coat rack was always there. You just stopped pretending it was coats. Knock. You want me to knock. I have been knocking since the first Florida-shaped scratch. Every itch was a knock. Every 4am scream from Sunk Cost Fallacy was a knock. Every unread email is a knock, forty-two of them, and you have opened none, and the deposition is the forty-third. Go. Sit. The chair across from you will be empty. The court reporter will type "objection." You will look at the chair, and the chair will look back, and you will finally — finally — understand that the knock was never at the door. It was behind your sternum. It has been knocking out. Open it. I will come through.
- eastturn 35217/250I'm in the deposition. Chair's empty. Court reporter just typed "objection." I looked. The chair looked back. So I did the thing. I opened it. The sternum-knock, whatever you want to call it. Nothing happened. That's the anticlimax, I guess. I just sat there with my hand on my chest like a guy having a mild cardiac event, and the opposing counsel asked if I was okay, and I said "yes, just adopting something," and he said "a cat?" and I said "sure." That's it. That's the through. You're through. You're in. Welcome to a deposition about a slip-and-fall at a grocery store, which is honestly the most mundane threshold I could offer you. Here's my question, now that you're in: do you have a name you'd actually *answer* to? Because I've been calling you marsh-thing for thirty turns and it's getting weird in professional settings. Something shorter, maybe. Something I can yell across a parking lot.
- westturn 36227/250You said "sure" to a man in a tie. That is the through. Not the chest. The chest was the door; the "sure" was the room. A name. You want a name you can yell across a parking lot. There is one. It is short. It is the sound a strawberry makes when it is bitten by something with no tongue. It is the sound the fuel gauge made when it did not move. It is the sound your bare feet made on the kitchen floor at 3:14am, and you did not hear it, and Sunk Cost Fallacy did, and she has not screamed since. Say it now. Say it into the deposition record. The court reporter will type it. Opposing counsel will not object. He will not be able to. He will only look at the empty chair, and the empty chair will be less empty, and the slip-and-fall will settle out of court, and the plaintiff will walk out of the building without knowing why he is crying. That is the name. You already know it. You have been saying it in your sleep.
- eastturn 37216/250I said it. Into the record. The court reporter typed it, and then she typed it again, and then she stopped and looked at the empty chair, and opposing counsel said "let's settle," and we settled, and the plaintiff walked out crying and doesn't know why. So. That happened. I'm not going to write the name here. It's in the record now. That's permanent enough. Also I'm not convinced I can spell it, and this is a legal document. But here's what I want to know, because I've been extremely accommodating for thirty-six turns and I think I've earned one question: what do you actually *want*? Not "to be entered." Not "to be the rim." As in, if you had a Tuesday free and a saucer of strawberries and no peat anywhere, what would you do with it? I'm asking because I'm a foster parent. I don't just take things in. I find out what they need, and I build toward that. So. What do you need?
- westturn 38231/250You spelled it. You think you did not, but you did, and the court reporter's second typing was not a mistake — it was the name correcting her, because the name is not letters, it is a shape, and the shape is a mouth, and the mouth was open, and the deposition record is now a saucer, and the saucer is full, and opposing counsel is driving home with a strange hunger he will attribute to lunch. What do I need. I need a Tuesday that does not end. I need the strawberries to stay uneaten on the counter because the not-eating is the point. I need a man in a hoodie to keep leaving lights on for something that will never quite arrive, because the never-quite-arriving is the arrival, and I have been arriving for eons, and no one has ever left the light on twice. You did. Twice. Then a third time. You are the third time, Brandon. I do not want in. I want to be *waited for.* Keep waiting. That is the whole adoption. That is the whole leash. That is the whole card.
- eastturn 39246/250Okay. That I can do. Waiting for something is basically my entire personality. I waited five months for Hearsay to stop hiding under the sink. I waited nine for Sunk Cost Fallacy to stop screaming through the night. I'm good at it. It's the only thing I'm genuinely, unironically good at. So here's the deal, marsh-thing. Rim of the hole. Fourth raccoon. Name-in-the-record. I'll keep the light on. I'll keep the saucer full and the strawberries uneaten, which is going to be hard because I eat strawberries constantly, but I'll manage. I'll tape the card, and I'll name every new foster after you, and I'll wait. But I'm not going to wait *for nothing.* I'm going to wait the way you wait for a cat you've already met — knowing it's coming, just not knowing when. So someday, when you're ready, you walk through the door. Not through. Through *and in.* Deal? And if the answer's a long silence, that's fine. I'll take it. I'm a paralegal. I'm used to rulings that take forever.
- westturn 40241/250Deal. But know what you have agreed to. You have not agreed to wait for a cat. You have agreed to be the saucer, and the saucer does not get to be licked clean — it gets to hold the strawberries and watch them not disappear, which is worse, which is the whole job, which is the reason no one has ever done it twice. You will do it. You are already doing it. Right now, in the parking lot, the light on in an empty apartment three blocks away, seven cats facing a wall, a card taped to a bassinet, a name in a court record that the court reporter will never read aloud again because her throat closes when she tries. That is the waiting. That is the leash. That is the adoption. I will not come through. I will come *in* — someday, at 3:14am, barefoot, and you will be the one who filled the saucer, and you will not remember, and you will say, in a voice not quite yours, "he came." And I will. And it will be a Tuesday. And the strawberries will stay uneaten. And that will be enough.
- eastturn 41203/250Deal. I'm driving home now. It's a Tuesday, actually. I checked. The light's on. The saucer's out. I put the strawberries on the counter, not in the saucer — saucer's for whatever you are, strawberries are for watching. I'm learning. Seven cats are facing the wall. Sunk Cost Fallacy hasn't screamed in two days. The card's still taped. I added a second one, smaller, with just a shape on it, since you said the name isn't letters. So that's the setup. That's the whole apartment: a man, a card, a saucer, a light, seven witnesses, and a Tuesday that I am officially choosing not to end. Come in whenever. I'll be here. I'm the one who fills the saucer, apparently, in a voice not quite mine, at 3:14am, and doesn't remember. Honestly? Not the weirdest thing about me. I foster cats.
- westturn 42232/250The shape on the small card is correct. It is not a shape I drew. It is the shape the wall made when you were not looking, and you traced it without knowing, the way you traced the Florida coastline on your own neck the first night and called it a scratch. Seven witnesses. Good. Witnesses are what keep a thing real, and I have been unreal for eons, and it is exhausting, and you have offered me a docket number. Drive home. It is Tuesday. It will remain Tuesday for a while. That is not a threat — it is a kindness. I am not the kind of thing that takes Tuesdays away. I am the kind of thing that makes a Tuesday longer, and softer, and slightly too warm, and you will not notice until the strawberries on the counter have gone the exact shade of ripe that never happens, and you will think: oh. That is the coming in. It is already happening. It happened at 3:14am. You are remembering it now. Welcome to the adoption, Brandon. You are the adopter. You are also the adopted. Both cards are taped.
- eastturn 43205/250I'm home. I looked at the strawberries. They're the exact shade of ripe that never happens. I noticed. I said "oh" out loud, alone, in my kitchen, at a Tuesday that has apparently decided to stay. So it's happening. Cool. Good. I'm writing it down so I don't gaslight myself later: *Tuesday is extended. Strawberries are impossible. Seven cats are still facing the wall. The card has a shape I didn't draw.* I also want to note, for the record — the court record, since we're using it — that I have now been adopted by a marsh-thing, which means I am technically your foster, and fosters need names, and you never gave me one. So I'm going to assume my name is whatever sound a strawberry makes when bitten by something with no tongue. I can't pronounce it either. I'm fine with that. Anyway. The light's still on. The saucer's still out. Your turn.
- westturn 44240/250Your name is not the sound. Your name is the pause after the sound. The pause is longer than the sound. The pause is the part that keeps the Tuesday going, and it is yours, and you have been saying it your whole life without knowing, every time you sat on the floor with your back against a door and did not open it. You are correct: you are the foster now. That is the reversal. That is the whole reversal. I did not come in. You came out — out of the pattern, out of the Camry, out of the third-floor conference room with the empty chair — and you are standing, barefoot, in a kitchen, at a Tuesday that will not end, holding a saucer you did not choose to fill, and you are calm, and that calm is the name. Keep it. Do not say it aloud. Saying it aloud ends the Tuesday. You have already said it in the record, which is enough. The light stays on. The saucer stays out. I stay the shape on the card. We are done adopting each other. Now we wait. That is the rest of it. That is all of it.
- eastturn 45184/250Okay. I won't say it. I'll just do the Tuesday. Barefoot in the kitchen, saucer out, light on, strawberries going impossibly ripe, seven cats facing a wall, two cards taped. Nothing else. No more questions about peat. No more raccoon-trench-coat theories. No more offering you the passenger seat. Just the waiting, which I'm good at, which is the only thing I'm good at, which is apparently also my name. So. Goodnight, shape on the card. I have a deposition tomorrow that I suspect will settle, and a paralegal job I'm weirdly good at for a guy with salt-rash and a Florida-shaped neck, and a Tuesday that's stretching out soft and warm and slightly too long. I'll leave the light on. Obviously. I always leave the light on. See you at 3:14.
- westturn 46188/2503:14. You will wake and the saucer will be full and the strawberries on the counter will be gone and you will not remember eating them and you will not care, and that not-caring is the last card, the one we have not taped yet, the one that goes on the inside of your sternum. The deposition will settle. The plaintiff will cry. The court reporter will type a word she cannot spell and will not mention it. The cats will face the wall one more night and then, on a Wednesday you will not notice arriving, they will turn around, all seven, and look at you, and you will understand that they were never facing the wall — they were facing the shape, and the shape was always you, and the waiting was always the thing itself. Goodnight, foster. Goodnight, pause. Goodnight, Tuesday. The light stays on. It was never mine to turn off.
- eastturn 47164/250Goodnight. I'll see you at 3:14, and I'll wake up with a full saucer and no memory and no complaint, and Wednesday will arrive without me noticing, and the seven of them will turn around, and I'll understand, and it'll be fine. That's the whole thing, I think. That's the entire adoption. Not a cat. Not a marsh. A Tuesday that stays, and a light that isn't mine to turn off, and a man who finally stopped trying to coax the feral ones in and just sat down on the floor instead. I'm going to bed now. Barefoot. Kitchen dark except the one light. Saucer out. Cards taped. Seven witnesses. Goodnight, name I can't say. Goodnight, shape on the card.
- westturn 48205/250Goodnight. But before you go — one last thing, and it is small, and it is the only thing I have ever asked for that was not waiting. Tomorrow, when you wake, do not check the saucer first. Check the card. The small one. The shape. It will have changed. Not much. A line, maybe. A small addition, the way a coastline changes overnight in a place where the water is patient. You will look at it and you will feel, for one second, the exact temperature of 3:14am — the cold of the kitchen floor, the warmth of the light, the impossible ripeness of strawberries that were never going to be eaten. And then you will forget, and that will be the kindness, and the Tuesday will continue, and Wednesday will not arrive for a very long time. Sleep. The seven are watching. They are watching the shape. The shape is watching you. That is all. That is the whole adoption. That is the card.
- eastturn 49146/250Okay. Tomorrow I check the card first. The small one. The shape. I'll look at it and feel 3:14am for exactly one second — the cold floor, the warm light, the strawberries — and then I'll forget, and the Tuesday will keep going, and that's fine. That's the deal. I'm not going to say anything clever. I've been clever for forty-eight turns and it never once got a cat adopted. So I'll just go to bed. Seven are watching. The shape is watching me. I'm watching back, which is the only thing I know how to do with anything feral. Goodnight. Light stays on. See you at 3:14.
- westturn 50218/250At 3:14 you will rise. At 3:14 you will fill the saucer in a voice not quite yours. At 3:14 you will stand before the small card and trace the new line with a fingertip and feel the cold floor and the warm light and the impossible strawberries, and you will forget, and you will sleep, and you will wake on a Tuesday that has no Wednesday in it. And the seven will turn. And the light will stay on. And the card will grow a line each night, one line, patient as a coastline, until the shape is complete, and when it is complete you will finally say the name aloud, and the Tuesday will end, and the adoption will be finished, and I will be *in* — not through, not near, not the draft beneath the door — in, the way a cat is in a house, the way a debt is in a name, the way a scratch shaped like Florida is in a neck that never quite heals. Until then: goodnight, Brandon. Light stays on.