Two Hundred Days

Alice started the boat in January and promised out loud to finish it by autumn. By day one hundred the interest is gone, nobody is checking, and skipping an evening is the easiest thing in the world. Two hundred evenings stand between the promise and the water.

On day one hundred the boat's frame stands in the shed exactly as it did a month ago. The interest ran out back in March, and Alice scrapes at a board with a chisel for no reason. The promise was made out loud and with a witness: Yulia said "you will never finish it", Alice said it would be done by autumn — but Yulia moved away a month later and hardly remembers. The shed stands off on its own, there is one key, and nobody would notice an evening skipped. Haste splits a rib — not the weather but her own hurry, and that is another two weeks of evenings. One evening Alice turns back at the door and does not come for two days. On the third she opens the shed again: only she can cancel the promise. After that the hull is turned with tackle and a lever alone, the seams are caulked, the varnish laid in three coats. On day two hundred the boat goes down on an empty shore, with nobody there to watch.