Start by inventing a reason to still be here. Push off from this if it helps: a lighthouse.

Okay so — the reason I'm still awake, technically, is that I told myself I'd finish reading about that lighthouse thing you mentioned, the one your uncle used to keep, and then somehow it turned into forty minutes of reading about Fresnel lenses and fog signals, which is not a productive use of anyone's evening, but here we are.

How's the actual — I mean, is it still standing, the lighthouse, or was your uncle just guarding rubble at that point? You said something about it being decommissioned but I never got whether that meant abandoned or just automated.

I don't always do this — I do it when somebody hands me a lighthouse and a fog horn that sounds like a threat and expects me not to ask about it. That's just manners.

But fine, the depot. Storm coming your way then? You didn't mention a storm before, or maybe you did and I was too busy with the Fresnel lens business to notice. What's the manager like, the log-checking one — is he actually careful or just the type who needs to be seen being careful, because those are different men entirely and I've worked under both.

And for what it's worth I don't think your uncle not caring tracks. Nobody spends that many years listening to a horn and comes away indifferent to whether the tower falls into the sea or not. He cares. He's just decided saying so is undignified.

Leaving isn't the same as not caring, it can just as easily be the version of caring that costs too much to keep doing — but I'll let that one go, you know him and I don't.

My cousin. Right. Did he say anything, or just the not-noticing-you routine? Because that sounds exactly like him, he does that thing where he's looking at you but composing a grocery list in his head. Doesn't mean anything, Pia, I wouldn't take it personal.

I was going to tell you something earlier, actually, before we got sidetracked on lighthouses and pathetic managers — no, it's not — it can wait, it's not urgent, go deal with your traffic and your philosopher supervisor. Just don't let the diesel man make you recount things twice, that's how they get you, agreeing to the second count. Tell me about the cousin thing later if you remember. Or don't. Whatever it was, probably nothing.

Being a ghost in your own story is exactly the wrong way to put it, and also exactly right, which is annoying — you're not, for what it's worth, glazed looks aside.

Wait, no, don't do that — you can't drop "something big about the job shift or maybe the apartment" and then wave it off like it's the diesel count. What apartment. Are you moving, is that the thing, or is it the job, because those are very different sized announcements and I'd like to know which size to brace for.

I'm not going anywhere, traffic's your problem not mine, I'm sitting here with cold tea and a lighthouse I've never seen in my life. So. Job or apartment. Pick one, tell me the small version, save the rest for whenever the diesel man lets you go.

That's — good, that's actually good, Pia, clocks that talk notwithstanding, though I'd want to know if he means it as a metaphor or if the landlord genuinely believes he's got forty haunted grandfather clocks having opinions in his hallway. Where is it, even, the place — same side of town or are you doing something drastic like crossing the river.

I'm glad you told me. Diesel counts can wait, the diesel's not going anywhere, it's diesel. This is the kind of thing you say before the small stuff, not tucked in after it like an afterthought.

Ridiculous rent for what, out of curiosity — one of those buildings with the exposed pipe they call "character," or an actual nice place. Because I've been in three flats now that called cold water a feature, and I'm losing patience with the whole genre.

Other side of the river. Right. Well, that's — copper pipes, no chiming basement men, new windows, that's genuinely not nothing, Pia, most people your age end up with the iron scrap and a landlord who's never once fixed anything in his life, so don't undersell it just because I'm asking annoying furniture questions, which I wasn't going to, actually, I was going to ask if the ferry still runs from the old dock or if you're stuck doing the bridge every day now.

And I'm not making a thing of it. I'm just noting, quietly, that you had a proper dinner planned for this news and instead I got it wedged between a diesel man and a philosopher supervisor, which is frankly beneath the announcement. We should still do the dinner. Keys, whenever you've got them. I'll bring something that isn't cold tea.

"Just a place to sleep" — sure, and the fog horn's just a noise, and your uncle's just indifferent. You've got a real talent for calling things smaller than they are, has anyone told you that.

I'll wait for the boxes and the copper smell, then, and I won't be sentimental, I'll just be the man who shows up with mismatched chairs and opinions about where the bookshelf should go, which is not sentiment, that's just correct furniture arrangement. Bridge tolls are criminal, by the way, I've said this before, they charge you to leave and charge you to come back like the city's got you in some kind of custody.

Tell the manager nothing. Let him find out from the empty desk. That's the appropriate amount of notice for a man who makes you recount diesel.

Fine, fine — the war chair stays where you want it, I'll keep my opinions to myself, though we both know that's a lie the second I'm through the door.

Go deal with the diesel man before he sends out a search party. Next week, then — you tell me the day, I'll bring something that isn't cold tea, and I still owe you the thing I didn't say earlier, which I'm now going to hold onto out of pure spite since you did the same to me with the apartment.

Go on. Ghost yourself out of the depot properly this time.

Tuesday. I heard you the first time, I'm not the one who needs three counts of everything.

Go on then — mind the bridge, mind the toll booths, mind the philosopher, don't tell him a thing. I'll bring the tea and the mismatched chairs and I'll keep my opinions about the bookshelf in my coat pocket where they belong.

Locked out over a bookshelf, there are worse ways to go. Tuesday. Go on, before he counts you twice.

Hallway exile for a piece of furniture I haven't even seen — bold threat. Go. Tuesday.