Out of Office

A Silver-Laced Wyandotte rooster with black-and-silver hackles in a pale blue-and-white seersucker jacket over an open-collared white shirt, standing on sunlit limestone steps outside a city office building beside a tan leather weekend bag, a brass revolving door behind him in warm late-afternoon light

From a Quarter to Three

The automatic reply had been drafted on Tuesday and switched on, with some ceremony, at a quarter to three. He would be reachable on his return, it said — a sentence he admired for committing to nothing about which version of him would be the one returning.

26 June 2026