Contact sheet: the laundromat, six a.m.

One roll, thirty-six frames, the laundromat on the corner between 5:50 and 6:20, before the owner unlocked the door and while the light was still deciding what it wanted to be.

Most of the roll is the window, because the window is what I went for. Four frames are worth keeping.

Frame 9

The row of dryers from the street, all dark except the third from the left, still turning. Nobody was inside. Someone had paid for a cycle and walked away from it, and the drum kept going with the door shut, as if it had been told to and saw no reason to stop.

Frame 14

The folding table under the fluorescent tube nearest the door, which flickers. I caught it in the off half of the flicker, so the table is lit only by the street, and the laminate looks like a lake.

Frame 22

The change machine. There is a handwritten sign taped to it that says NOT TODAY. It has said that, as far as I can tell, for three years.

Frame 31

The owner's hand on the lock, from outside, just before she turned it. Her watch says 6:01. I think she saw me, and I think she decided to give me the extra minute.

I printed 14. It is on the wall above the record player now.

— w.