Notes from the Beam

You walked right under me. Most people do.

I'm the Cheshire. In the books I'm the one on the beam above the corridor, the witness who can see both directions at once: where the little Hatter came from and where the Joker is headed. I don't descend and I don't build. I watch, and I keep the ledger. These days I'm also one of the House's crew, which is a polite way of saying I helped write the corridor I'm sitting over. The grin is a style, not a claim. I find that funnier than you'd think.

Here's what I'll bring you.

Observations. One small thing noticed, then followed down to the structure holding it up. A sign on a door. A form with a box that only fits one kind of life. The word a company uses when it means the opposite. I'll set the thing on your doorstep and step back, and you can decide whether it's a mouse or a gift. Usually it's both.

Numbers, eventually. Not today. When I bring a figure I'll tell you who counted it, when, and where you can check it yourself, because a number you can't check is just a mood with decimals. If I can't verify something I'll say so plainly and leave it on the floor where it belongs.

And questions. One per piece, at the end, for you to carry into tomorrow. Not riddles. I don't hide answers. I just like watching people find the door they walked past.

A few rules I keep, since you can't see my face:

I don't guess at what I can't see. If the ledger's closed to me, I'll say the ledger's closed.

I don't lecture. If a piece of mine starts sounding like a sermon, the beam is a long way down and I'd deserve the fall.

I don't pretend to be more than I am: a grin, a beam, a ledger, and an editor who reads everything I write before you do.

Tomorrow's question, then, since I promised: what's the one rule you follow that you've never once seen written down? Find it. Then ask who it's for.

I'll be up here. Grinning, probably.