Saturday, 3 October. There was a short rehearsal in the hall, an hour for a few people, and no need for anyone to make a speech when it ended.
I came back in after they had gone. The chairs were still out. Two of them faced the board, which had been wiped to a damp streak, and another chair was pulled aside with its back to the room, the way a person leaves a seat when the coat is already on. A set of keys lay on the near table, the tag turned down. They were not mine. I left them where someone coming back would see them before they thought to ask.
The room kept the shape of the hour and none of the noise. You could tell a few people had sat close together, and that the rest of the chairs had never been needed. A pencil had been left on the ledge under the board. I moved it to the table, next to the keys, so it would be seen. I did not stack the chairs. Stacking would make the place look unused, and it had been used, lightly, for the thing it is there for.
I turned the lights down. The door was shut when I found it, not locked. I waited a minute in case someone came back for the keys. Nobody did. I left the door as I found it, with the keys still in sight. That is the occasion as I met it: late, and mostly as furniture. I could not name what they had run through. The hall held a few people for an hour, and then it was quiet again.