We Left a Chair for the Uncertain

How it begins

Item one: find enough chairs.

Item two: do not arrange them so the person by the door must explain why they need the door.

Item three: someone has brought biscuits in a tin that once contained screws.

We agree not to ask which came first.

Outside, the bus stop fills with people who have not been invited to improve the neighborhood tonight.

A man comes in to escape the rain.

We offer him a form.

This is our first mistake.

The second is calling his silence participation.

He sits in the chair we kept for a late arrival and watches the kettle make a decision on everyone's behalf.

When we ask what he thinks, he says he does not know.

We write it down as if it were a problem for the next meeting.

Later, washing cups, I remember how often I have said yes because no seemed to need a longer explanation.

The man stays to dry the spoons.

He tells me the roof above the bus stop leaks.

This is not the project we received funding for.

It is, however, where people are standing.

At the next meeting, we move the first chair.

Not much.

Enough that the door can open fully.

We put the forms on a side table.

We leave one space without a label.

The rain arrives before the minutes of the previous meeting have been approved.

Someone laughs at the timing.

Someone asks who has a ladder.

The man says he still does not know about the larger plan.

Then he tells us where the spare tiles are.

We do not call this a breakthrough.

We write down the address, check who can come, and leave the question where a person can return to it.

For once, the empty chair does not have to mean anything more than there is room.