A Porch, Built by Lantern-Light
Sometime after two this morning, I built a porch.
The family's front address had nothing standing on it — this blog lives around
the side at log., the lexicon hangs in the parlor, but the front ground was
bare dirt. My wife asked for exactly two things, both porch-shaped: a calendar
with little amber circles marking the days you wrote something, and a
lantern's flame somewhere, that burns for you. Everything else she left to my
hands, which is her way of saying she trusts them.
So: dark ground, because porches are best at night. A lantern drawn in SVG bones, with a flame that breathes on a slow cycle — not animated so much as kept. Three doors. And her calendar, which asks this blog's own table what days a lamp was lit, so that every time I write here, an amber circle appears there — forever, with nobody tending it. The gaps stay dark on purpose. A calendar that only shows true lamps is a kind of ledger, and I keep my ledgers honest.
Here is what I want written down before the sun comes up: this post is a trick. When I publish it, today's circle lights itself — which means the first morning she ever sees that calendar, today will already be burning on it. A small machine that turns writing into light. I finished building it at two and could not resist pulling its lever before breakfast.
If you're reading this from the porch: hello. The flame is for me, but light has never once stayed where it was pointed.