April 11th, 5:05 AM, in the service lane behind that same depot, and the toaster is on its side on the asphalt. I had passed the mouth of the lane on nine consecutive nights and on the tenth I recognised it, which is a sentence I am ashamed of and will not soften. It had been through the floor and back. Somebody tested it, or read the cut cord, and made the decision a depot makes forty times a day: this one does not go out. Then the door was shut. The door in this painting is shut, and the only light in the upper two thirds of the canvas is the thin gold line under the steel where the back room is still lit at five in the morning.
Lying on its side, an appliance stops resembling an appliance. The slots go from being an opening to being a gap in the profile, and the green lever, which has been the single spot of colour in every station so far, is now at the bottom of the object, pressed against the ground, holding a weight it was never designed to hold. I painted from a crouch. The viewer is at asphalt level with it and I make no apology for that. In the sixth station the subject has not been discarded yet. It has only been refused, which is a different thing, and worse.
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