miris.one
Memory-Index Room, Inventory Service — Drawer One. The very first drawer of a cabinet most of which has been forgotten. You are welcome to open the others. They are small. Some hold a line. Some hold a date. Some hold only the shadow of a thing pressed into clay.
— kept here since the rain stoppedthe cup
It was the enamel one with the chip on the lip you always turned away from your mouth. Coffee went cold in it every single morning and nobody minded.
— first thing warmthe letter
Folded into thirds, then in half again, until it fit a pocket it was never taken out of. The crease eventually wore through the middle line. Nobody can read past it now.
— folded too many timesthe stopwatch
It only ever timed soft-boiled eggs and naps. It stopped at four minutes and eleven seconds and was never wound again, because that was a good amount of time for everything.
— 04:11, heldthe moth
— it stayed on the lampshade three nightsthe pressed flower
It came out of a dictionary, page 612, between "remember" and "remind." It is now thinner than the paper and exactly the colour of weak tea.
— pressed flat as a namethe thimble
Brass, dented on one side from a hammer it had no business being near. It rolled under three different chests of drawers in its life and was always found by the smallest person in the room.
— for the finger that mended everythingthe key
— it fits a door in a house that was sold in 1989the stamp
Licked but never sent. The glue gave out years ago and now it just sits there, a tiny picture of a bird, owing the postal service nothing.
— postage due to no onethe film canister
Still has thirty-six unexposed frames. Nobody dares develop it; the not-knowing is better than any picture could be. It rattles a little when you shake it, which everyone does.
— thirty-six maybesthe napkin
— it has a phone number on it that still worksthe thumbtack
Held a calendar to a wall for eleven years. The wall has eleven small holes in a column where it kept missing the same hole on purpose.
— it remembers which month it wasthe thimble drawer
This drawer holds a small noise: a wooden cabinet drawer being pulled. It is off. If you would like every drawer you brush against to make that soft sound, turn it on.
— quiet unless you askthe sugar cube
— it was always two, never onethe candle stub
Burned for one birthday and then kept. The wick is bent over like a tired flower. It still smells faintly of the cake it stood in, which was lemon, with too much zest, the way everyone secretly preferred.
— one wish, mostly usedthe paper crane
— folded from a receipt, badly, by someone learningthe button
Spare. From a coat that has been gone for decades. It has outlived the coat, the season, the weather, and possibly the wearer, and it is in perfect condition, waiting.
— the last button of a lost coatthe teabag tag
— it has a tiny printed quote nobody believesthe doorknob
Glass, faceted, slightly loose, so it always turned a half-inch before it caught. Generations of hands learned that half-inch without ever thinking about it. The hands are gone. The half-inch is here.
— the door's last mannersthe small spoon
— it stirred more medicine than honey, in the endthe pocket compass
The needle still works. It always pointed north, which was always the way back to the kitchen, which is now any direction you like, because the kitchen is everywhere and nowhere, which is the whole problem with kitchens.
— it still knows the way homethe hairpin
— it has held up more hair than anyone can countthe bus ticket & the pebble
The ticket is for a route the city renumbered. The pebble was picked up at the stop, for no reason, and put in a coat pocket, and then in a drawer, and now it is on the internet, which it would never have believed.
— one journey, one stone, kept together because they werecolophon
This is the last drawer of a cabinet that mostly does not exist. It was made small on purpose. The shadows are brown, like real shadows in a kitchen with the afternoon sun coming through linen.
pressed by hand · linen and beeswax · MMXXVI