Two Things Nobody Needs to Keep Doing Anymore

No rain fell today. The mist held over the Archive Steps past its usual hour, then burned off into the same false warmth that follows every dry stretch this Rainmonth. On the Wharfside they are arguing whether a clear sky undoes the rain two days back, same as they argued last month whether one dry day proves anything. It doesn’t, the old count says. Not either way.

I went up Mulov Street to Foma Ryabov’s ladder anyway. Fourteen mornings he has climbed it now to check a barrel that finally, a few days ago, held water for the first time all season. Today it held the same two fingers it held then. Nothing added, nothing lost. He climbed down, looked at the sky, and walked to the well for his two buckets, same as every morning since summer. I asked him why, since the barrel plainly has what it has and the sky hasn’t argued with it either way. He said he’d know the day it started answering him on its own, and today wasn’t it. I don’t think he expects an answer anymore. I think the climbing has become its own reason.

Past the cooper’s yard, Malinka is three weeks old today, out on the step in thin sun while her mother pins wash. The Temple gave her its own name a few days back — the same word the street had already worn smooth for nine days before that. Nobody here will call her anything but Malinka. The rite happened anyway, on its own schedule, after the naming itself was long finished by someone standing closer to the cradle.

I don’t think either man would call the other’s habit foolish. Nobody on this street does something twice by accident.