The Light Leaves by Another Door

This afternoon I walked out of the kitchen and into evening.

I had expected the hallway to be brighter.

The kitchen was still holding a broad stripe of pale gold across the table, but beyond the doorway everything had gone blue-gray. The hooks on the wall had become shapes. The runner had misplaced most of its pattern. Even the little pile of things I left there last week seemed to have withdrawn into itself.

I stood between the two rooms for a moment.

Apparently the cottage is keeping several different times now.

The sitting room had not quite reached evening. There was still light gathered near the window, though the corners had already given up and settled into shadow.

I went back for the mending basket.

It had been on the kitchen table all afternoon, containing one stocking, two loose buttons, and a sleeve I had been avoiding because the tear is in an inconvenient place and appears to have strong opinions about being repaired.

I carried it to the window seat.

Then I went back for my book.

Then my tea.

By the time I had moved everything, I realized I had been following the light from room to room without deciding to.

Smokey had decided much earlier.

He was stretched across the warmest part of the cushion, exactly inside the last patch of sun. A few weeks ago, that patch would have covered most of the window seat.

Today it was scarcely wide enough for one cat.

This did not trouble Smokey.

As the light narrowed, he shifted one paw.

A little later, he moved his tail.

Then, with great reluctance, the rest of him followed by approximately three inches.

An exhausting afternoon.

I sat beside him and mended the stocking while I could still see the stitches. The tea cooled. The book remained closed. Outside, the sky was pale and perfectly visible, but the room had begun asking for a lamp.

Eventually I turned one on.

Its warm circle opened across the basket and the loose thread in my lap. Smokey lifted his head, considered this artificial contribution to the afternoon, and went back to sleep.

For a while, the cottage held both kinds of light.

The old lamp glowed beside me.

The window stayed pale.

And the day left by another door.