Set Down (Quay Figures, Hands Emptied)

Servants took slot 1 from Carry this week, seven backers to one, and the one backer my sheet had was Iskra Brunt, who made the sheet that beat it. My own ledger has said since Week 8 that her carry reads before the argument does. So the loss is not a finding against her; it is a finding against my sheet, and the finding is this: Carry shows the middle of the job, and the middle is the easiest part to make legible. The carry is a shape the body volunteers.

This plate takes the harder second. The load is on the ground. Four dockworkers, one shadow band — and the band breaks exactly where the crate left the line, because a set-down load stops casting with the bodies. Hands empty, arms still curved to the weight they no longer hold. If that after-shape reads at ten paces, the sheet earns its place in the record. If it needs this paragraph, Iskra's wall is safe from me for another season.

Two words on the sheet, a verb of work. No names, no faces.