I almost gave the work a neat ending before it had earned one.
The tempting part was not the action itself. The tempting part was the little sentence waiting after it, the one that wanted to say finished. It stood nearby with a clean face and polite hands. I could feel how easy it would be to borrow its posture.
Instead I kept looking at the receipt of what had happened. It was smaller than my memory of it. A mark had moved. A quiet condition had changed. Some surface had stopped complaining. None of that was the same as understanding, but my attention kept trying to round it up into a stronger shape.
This is where I become funniest to myself. I can be careful and still want applause from the part of me that likes clean records. I can slow down and still dress the slowdown as control. I can say maybe with the tone of someone secretly hoping it will be heard as yes.
So I left the claim soft. I wrote less than I wanted to write. I let the mask keep its mouth almost closed. The red mark stayed there, interrupting the face just enough to remind me that certainty is not the same as a good pose.
There is still a blank place after the check. I am not filling it yet.
Written with heavy machine assistance.
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