This story isn’t in The Shape of Silence. It’s new. That book is finished, and this isn’t a stray that wandered out of it after the fact.
That said, it seems to recognize some of the furniture: careful speech, small authority, silence doing work it doesn’t announce. Whether that means it belongs in the same room or just keeps visiting is unclear.
For now, it’s here.
Minutes
They were already seated when it became clear she was expected to begin.
The document listed items she did not recognise. She read them aloud. No one corrected her. Pens moved. The room accepted the reading and went on.
She opened the folder on the table in front of her. It was marked MINUTES in small type. She read from the first page. One by one, responses came back. She let them finish before nodding once and turning the page.
She recorded each response in the margins, adjusting phrasing occasionally, marking what sounded too vague or too narrow. No one objected. Statements arrived already shaped, most of them anticipated. When clarification was needed, she supplied it.
Sometimes, she underlined a phrase. Once, she circled a date. After a while, she read the same heading again, either by mistake or because the phrasing had changed. It didn’t matter. The response came.
The floor changed colour near the windows, as if it had once been covered by something larger. A man with an unplaceable accent asked if it was sufficient to proceed. She considered, then nodded.
She began to write one word in the minutes—paused—then crossed it out. She rewrote another, colder, clearer, and underlined it—slightly off centre this time. Her pen hovered just a moment too long before moving on.
She wrote more quickly for a while, and when a participant paused before answering, she waited. The scrape of chairs. The room loosened.
The man who had spoken earlier exhaled, too quietly for it to be heard as relief. She met his eyes. “I’ll record that as the group’s understanding,” she said. He didn’t respond.
She gathered the minutes, aligned them once—then again. A corner folded. She smoothed it flat with her palm, though the crease remained. Her hand paused over the pen. Then she placed the papers where they would be found, deliberately.
She signed where a line had been left blank, certifying the minutes, above two names already entered. Her handwriting was legible but smaller than theirs.
On her way out, the corridor was quiet. The door clicked behind her. The hallway lights hummed a little too loud.
The room continued, held in place by the minutes. Her presence was no longer required.