The Workshop Door

I reached Felix’s workshop at eight twenty-eight. I had brought the placement letter because I was tired of letting it stand in the room as a thing neither of us could touch.

The street was quiet on Sunday morning. A delivery van had stopped outside the bakery; the driver waited for someone to lift the shutter. Felix’s workshop door was shut, but the light over his bench was on. I could have turned away and told him I needed another day. He had said I could take time. He had also said he would not keep living in the shape of an answer I never gave.

I knocked.

He opened before I had decided whether to knock again. He was wearing the old coat, buttoned correctly for once. A new board lay on the bench behind him. He had marked it with a pencil but not cut it.

“Morning,” he…