About His Person

Five pounds fifty in change, exactly, a library card on its date of expiry. A postcard stamped, unwritten, but franked, a pocket size diary slashed with a pencil from March twenty-fourth to the first of April. A brace of keys for a mortise lock, an analogue watch, self winding, stopped. A final demand in his own hand, a rolled up note of explanation planted there like a spray carnation but beheaded, in his fist. A shopping list. A givaway photgraph stashed in his wallet, a kepsake banked in the heart of a locket. no gold or silver, but crowning one finger a ring of white unweathered skin. That was everything.