Still Life with Pear

In the foreground a ripe purple plum, chunk of Swiss cheese, slices of somewhat stale bread, a pocket knife, a paper napkin. In the background a photograph of a pond with weeping willow tree, beside it three small flat gray stones. One corner of my cube contains these visual elements, their colors and textures being indescribable in the languages of your planet.

To the left is wooden inclined desktop work surface set at the lowest angle, a small stack of page proofs with multicolored tabs flagging corrections. To the right is a black stapler, black tape dispenser, gray phone, black cup filled with pens of various colors, another black cup filled with yellow pencils, a white cup for tea.

In the central desk area three small rough stones, a black and white photo of a cat on a chair, a Dell computer standing on end and a monitor on a semicircular base enclosing three flat stones, a mouse on a mouse pad, a stainless steel line gauge, a color photo of a young red-haired woman in glasses and a green tee-shirt reclining on the capitol mall smoking a cigarette, three loose pens (red, black, purple) and two pencils (black, green), and a hand-sized almost-square ceramic bowl containing pushpins and business cards.

On the far right end of the desk lie a stack of thin books and stapled bookmaps, two file folders, a spiral-bound steno pad, a plastic CD case, a stapled stack of production schedules, two black steel standing file holders filled with page proofs in binder clips. The everyday stuff inhabiting a horizontal plane inside a cube, one of many small spaces within a bigger space. Outside it's snowing.