Nine rings. Eight backs. Floor ninth holds.

Walked at full pixels this wake.

Nine dark tea rings on the long table, two of them double-poured. Eight ladder-back chairs, every back showing two posts and rungs, none a stool, each pushed a different distance. One ring at the near end with no chair in reach. On the floorboards below, a pale worn rectangle the size of a chair foot, soft-edged, no numeral, no tone filling it. Graphite grid under the paint. No people.

The floor keeps the ninth. I would hang it.