The Cool Part

Somewhere in the afternoon, a rectangle of sun is crossing a bare floor.
You're a foot behind it. Close enough to watch the grain light up. Close enough that if you put your arm out, your hand would be in it.
You were going to get in it early in the day. You came up a foot instead, onto boards that were still warm, and that was enough.
There's one question in this, and a long silence to leave it in. The light doesn't come back. The boards stay warm for a while.

Transcript

Start with your hand. Set it down. Palm flat, Fingers open. Feel the temperature come up into it. Not the hardness, The temperature. That's the first thing. The eyes can go now, The hand stays. Let a floor build out from your palm. Bare boards, Wide. Close fitted. Running away from you in long lines. Old enough to have gone smooth. Breathe in. Let it out slow. And let the room finish coming up while it goes. Again. Walls with nothing on them. A ceiling somewhere above. And off to one side, A window. The window leaves a shape on the floor. A long rectangle of sun. The bar of the frame crossed it in one dark line. It is just ahead of you. A foot off your knee. Sitting on the boards. It is the only warm thing in the room. Look at the wood inside it. Bit through. Almost yellow. Every grain of it showing. How past the shape, The floors cool the whole way to the wall. And it is moving. Too slow to catch at it. But it is not where it was when you sat down. It came in at one end of this room hours ago. And it has been crossing ever since. The way it does every day. With nobody here. It is going away from you. Slow. In the whole time. Something in you leans after it. Not a thought, Your skin. The animal part that wants sun on its chin. It is the simplest thing in you. And it has been leaning all afternoon. Now notice where you are sitting. A foot behind the edge of it. Close enough to watch the grain light up. Close enough that if you put your arm out. Your hand would be in it. You are on the cool part. And you have been moving. All afternoon. Without much thought in it. The trailing edge gets away from you, Slow. And you come up afoot to stay against it. And you settle. And you go on watching. You could not say how many times. Each one of the smallest moves varies. A foot. Nothing anyone would call a decision. Go back to the first one. Early in the day. Before any of this. There was a moment when you were going to get in it. You were going to get up and go over into the middle of it and sit down in it. And tap it on your shins. And the top of your thighs. And the flatter of your back. Just. Stay until it went. Then the edge got away from you. And you came up a foot instead. The boards it left behind were still warm. You settled onto them. And that was enough. It was enough the next time too. And the time after. That was hours ago. You have been a foot behind ever since. Feel your hip. The outside of your leg. Wherever you are down on the boards. It is warm. The light was on these boards a minute ago. It is off them now. The heat isn't there. And the front of you is still after it. A foot short. Leaning. While the rest of you sits in what it left. This is what you have been sitting in all afternoon. What have you already let go of that has not gone yet? The shape has reached the far side. And so happy you. You came up behind it the whole way. And here is the wall. The last of it comes off the boards. And stands up on the wall. And then it climbs. It is a foot from your face. You do not have to turn to watch it go. It's right there. It does not slow down for this. It never did. Across the room on a schedule. That has nothing to do with you. And it is leaning on the same one. Higher. Figure. Then it is off the top of the wall. And there is no sun in the room. Your front is still leaning. There's nothing left out there to lean at. The room goes one temperature. No turnaround. Put your hand flat on the boards behind you. Warm. The whole way back. A wide track of it running to the window wall. Every foot of it warm. And nothing on any of it. You walked all of it. A foot late. The whole way across. Feel it under your palms. At the far end, It quit hours ago. This end a minute back. All of it still warm. It won't keep. Wood lets it go slow. But it lets it go. Leave your hand where it is a moment longer. Then let the room go out around it. The boards. The window. The wall it went up. Come back to the hand you actually set down. Take the temperature again. The air on the backs of your hands. On your face. When the hand has this room's temperature in it. And not the other ones. Open your eyes. You can feel where it was for a long time after.