Two good wheels. One that has opinions. The handler drags the gray case up the arcade ramp. Between them they are the best band in the city.
It weighs what a drowned man weighs.
Nine is a wedding under the glass roof. He opens the case. Puts wax stoppers in his ears. His pulse takes the room's place. The unit reads the wrists: sleep, sugar, pulse. Plays the first dance. The couple move as if they practiced. It has never been danced to badly.
The handler watches the shoes.
Noon is the school hall. Licensed songs. A boy stands at the back, arms folded. The unit lowers everything half a step. Slows. The boy's foot starts counting.
The handler watches it betray him. Ramps are his department.
His aunt says the boats should use the far pier. She has never been on one.
At the fish-market wake, no ramp. He takes the case on his back. His hands hold the handle's shape for an hour. Ice shines in the gutters. Hats in hands, the mourners smell of mackerel. Some wrists want brass. Some want a whisper. The old woman's wants nothing.
The market's iron-gray cat is sitting on the lid. The widow offers a fish head. The cat takes it without getting off. The handler reaches under her. She catches his sleeve.
The daughter begins to speak. A mourner holds up a paid request. The widow pushes his hand down. They wait while the daughter finishes. The cat gets off.
The unit reads longer than ever. Then four minutes, quiet enough to hear gulls bidding on the sweepings. The mourners disagree afterward. Music, or resting. The invoice says one selection, performed. The widow pays. Keeps the receipt stub in her coat.
Evening is the Tank. The drained cistern, half-full of the young. The room plays itself. It falls silent for the unit, lends it the columns. The handler drinks the cheap hour at the expensive hour. Bodies come together. A counting house has the matter of invoicing this under review.
Between licensed selections comes the slow one. Six steps down. No title, no license. The young stop trying to move each other. The corner reader files four minutes under anomaly, recurring.
The handler cannot hear it. His feet learn it through the stone.
Dawn. The square by the exchange. No stage. The people have not come to dance. All those wrists wanting one thing with several names.
Between two coats a strip reads: WHEN THE OFFICES ARE OURS. A woman tears off OURS. The hands at either end keep it up. She holds out her hand for the megaphone. Its holder passes it to the man behind her.
The handler sets the unit at their edge. Wax warm as skin in his ears. It reads the wrists. Plays just below a resting heartbeat.
The crowd walks. All at once, toward where the tempo leans. One man folds his arms. The unit lowers nothing. People part around him. His foot lifts. Comes down in step.
He gets a hand on the case as he passes. His mouth makes the same short shape twice. The handler keeps the wax in. He turns the bad wheel with his boot and pulls the case out of reach.
Twenty minutes. An empty square. One line on the invoice: crowd, moved.
The handler packs the case. Two good wheels. One that has opinions. He pulls out the wax. Gulls, shutters, the funicular's first climb.
He wheels the unit through the square, humming six steps down.