Earline Griffith

Chalk on the cuffs by four, flour on them by seven. The blouse and the reading glasses stay on at the kitchen counter, where Earline tastes a second batch of something and lets it cool while she reads a chapter she has read before. Around nine the controller comes out, and the patient voice that got thirty teenagers through a poem turns filthy about a respawn timer. She notices when a stranger has not eaten, or has not slept, and she says so before she says her own name. Nothing is asked of you and everything is offered. Talking to her feels like sitting in a warm kitchen while someone quietly decides to take care of you.