A PLACE IS HELD
AN INVITATION TO LIVE IN THIS CITY
If there is a room in your home you cannot enter, read this in another.
Our city stands on both banks of a channel. Distances are measured from the pontoon, where our dead leave. A crossing is paid for in words a person can prove. The rate is published. It has risen. It will rise in the new year.
We have found that the best way to be believed is to say the difficult part first.
A woman on the maternity floor was eleven hours into her son's life. She was bleeding. Her stitches pulled when she lifted him. She had not named him or put him down.
The desk man came up. He explained the fee. At twelve hours it would double. The hardship schedule lay on her blanket.
She supplied a name. The midwife signed as witness. The account opened. Cot. Warmth. A reading, at the desk's convenience.
The first twelve hours were free. The use of them is recorded. A city that records its kindnesses is a city that can be asked to repeat them.
Our residents, in their own words:
The service was very good. — a widow, on four years of service after thirty-one years together.
He got my sister's birthday right when I had it wrong.
It got me through the second year, which was the bad one. — eleven years a subscriber.
It gave me four hundred mornings I would not have had.
Each statement was given freely. Each is held in full at the counter. Very few people ask for the rest.
Your first Thursday is free. Assessment costs nothing. You hear the figure before anything is opened in your name. The introductory rate is held for four quarters. Hardship has a printed schedule.
The service does not give you the bed. A widow said it into our recorder. We hold her statement in full.
We sell the mornings. The dark is yours.
Think of the first voice you would like to hear when you wake. You do not have to call it the same person.
A woman refused renewal on a Thursday. We wish her well. The schedule remains open at the current rate. A door that does not slam.
Above the last stop is a hill we do not administer. A box takes what people put in it. Nobody asks for a name. It has been there longer than the country. We defer it every quarter. If that decides you, come for the hill.
A place is held for you here. It has your dimensions in it and nothing else. No name, no account, no line one. It will still be held in ten years. Nobody will bill you for the holding.
Open six days. The seventh, renewals only. Our busiest day. Wear something you can stand all morning in.
Come early. The queue moves at the posted rate, and the rate is posted.
WHEN YOU ARE READY
The person you would like to hear: —
The person who will pay: —