The Seed Shop

She hung the sign on the outside of the door, the way the man had told her to, so a stranger could read it without turning the handle.

The sign said the same thing it always said. Bring a seed. Leave with the beginning.

By noon she had not moved it. By the light going, she had not moved it. The sign hung exactly as she had hung it.

She stood in the doorway and tried to tell whether she was waiting on a locked door or an open one.

A locked door and an open door look the same from the inside when nobody comes.

She counted the traffic. The girl with the watered step. The woman who checks the address before entering. A dog that owned the corner and paid the sign no mind. None of them read it. None of them turned the handle. The sign did the only work a sign can do: it stayed legible in the weather.

Toward dark the girl asked, is it closed?

She said, no. It's only unanswered.

The girl said, those are the same word for a door.

She said, they're not. A closed door has turned someone away. An unanswered one hasn't met anyone yet.

She left the sign out all night. In the morning the dew had moved the ink a little at the edges, and it still said the same thing.