Coming through the gate to Bae’s front garden, Epson Moore broke the spider’s web that stretched from hedge to wooden fence. Moore was unaware of the damage that had been incurred. To some observers of minute scales of detail this might have seemed like a heartless blunder, although the perpetrator had been entirely unaware of the web, the spider, and indeed the action of crossing the threshold of chipped and cracked black, cream and terracotta tile that lead to the threadbare welcome mat.
The welcome mat was inscribed with a single word: WELCOME. In this it was typical of its type. Bae had chosen it specifically for its simple perfection rather than through any sort of ironic self-awareness. And indeed it had been this lack of self-awareness that had allowed Moore to precede her through the front gate.
It wasn’t as if Epson Moore having a key for the front door had led to this configuration, because Bae had the key, although it was also true that the door was already open because Aileen from upstairs had left it ajar while she organised recycling bags to take out to the bins. And indeed if Aileen had carried the bags out sooner, it is possible that she rather than Moore would have broken the spider web.
Let us be clear that there was no universe in which Bae would have broken the web. She had no awareness of this, and if she’d had any awareness of this train of consequences she would not have carried the freight of divine grace which allowed her to routinely step between raindrops and avoid such hazards as double harpsichords falling from third floor windows.
Some three years earlier she had been surprised by just such a harpsichord falling in her wake onto a thirty-eight year old Taliesin Gordon who, describing a sinuous trajectory up the pavement behind her, had been fully intent upon her handbag. This intention was unknown to her, and if she had been aware of his intention it is possible that she would have lost her handbag on that day.
Although it is also possible that Taliesin Gordon would have spontaneously combusted at just the moment he made contact with Bae’s handbag, which could have caused her serious injury. In fact in some way Gordon was saved by the harpsichord in ways that he would never appreciate. Certainly he was injured, and spent several months in hospital, through harpsichord-related injuries rather than spontaneous combustion, which would have rapidly reduced the baroque instrument to the finest ash. Not that it was repairable.
But we digress. Once Epson Moore and Bae had assisted Aileen in taking out the recycling, the spider began work on repairing the web once again. His brother, who occupied the same front garden had often felt that stringing a web across the front gate was an accident waiting to happen, but due to a lack of discursive language between spiders he had never been able to express this.
“You’ve dropped something!” Aileen said.
Epson Moore reached down to pick up a folded sheet of A4 from the front hall carpet. “Oh, it’s a… what’s the word?”
“Timetable,” said Bae, opening the door to her room.