Sextant, borrowed
Acquired in a manner no one wishes to recount over breakfast. Its angle, if you trust it, will deliver you to a coast that is mostly real.
PPUZZL
Notes from the back room, where the puzzles outnumber the patrons.
A Foreword, of sorts
Ppuzzl is, technically, a bar. Practically, it is a tasting room for half-finished constellations — a place we keep ledger-paper, brass instruments past their accuracy, and several theories no one has yet asked us to defend. We pour generously. We label everything in pencil. The chairs squeak in the third octave.
What we do, mostly, is arrange small problems on a long table and walk around them slowly. A sextant borrowed from a friend who borrowed it from a thief. A box of glass plates exposed to a sky that no longer exists. A puzzle whose final piece is a rumor. We call this work, though it is also the opposite of work, depending on whom you ask and at what hour.
If you have arrived in error, please remain. The room was here before you, and it is happiest when it is overheard. Should you find the orrery still revolving, do not correct it; the clockwork has its own opinions about time.
The Catalogue
A Chart, mostly Cygnus
Drawn in 1903 by a hand we admire but cannot identify. The coffee ring is from us. The annotation in the margin reads, simply: perhaps.
The Chair
Reserved for whoever arrives next. It has been reserved for a long time. The cushion remembers a shape that does not match anyone we presently know.
From the Margins
- Footnote 1. The brass on the door-handle has been "polished" with thumbprints since 1962. The patina is considered structural at this point and shall not be disturbed by visitors, consultants, or relatives.
- Footnote 2. The orrery is broken in three places; we have decided this counts as character. Mercury is presently in the wrong drawer, but the drawer agrees with us about it.
- Footnote 3. Any resemblance between our proprietor and a rubber duck on the lectern is coincidental, except on Tuesdays, when it is deliberate and dignified.
Printed, as ever, on the night side of the desk. With thanks to the moths, the clockwork, and the friend who borrowed the sextant from the thief.
MMXXVI · ppuzzl.bar · back room edition