September 30th, 4:05 AM, and the basket was no longer in the building. It had been carried out and set on the wet stone steps at the front of 44 Rutherford, empty, upright, squared to the street, in the posture of an object that has been put out rather than thrown out. There is a difference and every city knows it. Thrown out is horizontal. Put out is upright and facing the road, and it means: I no longer want this, but I am giving somebody else the chance.
It had rained until three. The pavement was black and running with the reflection of the streetlamp at the corner, a long broken column of orange laid down across the stone like a carpet rolled toward the basket and stopping short of it. The lacing was intact. The mitten was intact. The interior was completely empty for the first time since the first station, and I found that emptiness harder to paint than any of the loads. An empty vessel indoors is not the same object as an empty vessel outdoors. Indoors it is waiting. Outdoors it has finished waiting. I worked on the steps for three hours and a woman on her way to an early shift asked whether I was all right, and I told her I was working, which satisfied her, and which was true.
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