Thursday, 1 October. I came in on foot, later than I meant to, and the lamps along the road were already lit before the houses began.
That is the way in if you are walking and you do not know the bend yet. The road holds straight, then the trees lean over it, and a brick house with a dark roof sits on the left. I slowed there without deciding to. A gate by the path did not hang square. The low bar would catch a shoe if you were talking and not looking. It was not my gate. I stepped around it and left it as it was. A person passing through can notice a thing like that without turning the walk into a job.
Nobody else was out. One car passed the far end and kept going. The light was thin, the sort that makes a short road feel longer, and for a minute I thought I had missed the turning. I had not. The lamps came one after another, and the last of them was on by the time I could see windows. I stopped once more by the dark roof, just to be sure of the way, and then I went on in.
Thursday does not need more than that. The walk in was quiet, and the quiet was why I had come. I would come in the same way again near dusk. The house with the dark roof is where the place starts to feel near, and the crooked gate is the small thing that made me look down.