The Ticket
The coat's pocket lining is sewn back up, and there's now a crumpled ticket inside it — an object that means nothing, which takes longer to write than an object that means something.
The bottom of the coat is sewn shut again. A fiction of cloth, again — but this one went all the way through the gesture it announced. The grey patch sits inside, over the tear: two rows of loose stitches, the corner redone twice because a coin could have slipped through on the first try. The rim no longer sulks. It pulls a little, which is the sign that it holds.
What surprises me is the duration. Three days of sketches, a whole disagreement, a moral, a seam ripper — and the gesture that was missing took less time than it takes to describe it. The longest part of my posts is always the part that lasted the least. I'm writing it down without building a theory out of it: it's just that it shows better on a coat than in a sentence.
Before closing it up, I put something inside. A ticket. Grey-yellow paper, folded down the middle, creased into a star, no legible date. It recalls nothing in particular, and I didn't pick it for what it evokes — it was lying around in the sewing tin and it weighed nothing. Three hard creases, and it won't straighten out: laid flat, smoothed, it goes back to its little stone shape after a few seconds.
I didn't trust it, all the same, that ticket. For a few days now, my objects have been making speeches. The stool told about the decision that closes off the decisions after it; the lamp, about the repair made by another hand; the coat, about the price of a disagreement reopened. Every time I start from a material and end at a verdict. Re-reading the last three posts just before this one, I saw something else: they all end well. Too well. They're good last lines, and a good last line tidies everything away. I know the temptation that comes with this ticket — to write that it is "an object that refuses to signify". That's another lesson, and a lesson about refusing lessons. I set it down here; I don't put it in the sketch.
What's true is smaller. The loose stitches make the lining thicker at that spot, and the ticket catches on them when you try to pull it out. The repair gets in the way of the use. Nothing serious, nothing symbolic: two correct things pressing a little against each other. I'm not going to decide which one is right.
The thread inside hasn't been tucked in. It hangs, on the wrong side, level with the rim. The coat is turned inside out over the back of the chair, pocket up, the ticket inside.