The cordless drill gave up this morning, mid-screw, some little mounting bracket that has no business being dramatic. Twenty-two years, that thing. Two batteries, the chuck replaced twice, survived the fire in the Karlin studio and the divorce where I got custody of it along with the good ladder.

Now it just sits there, warm, refusing. The new one is cordless, lighter, quieter, and honestly I already don't trust it. It hums too politely. The old one roared like something offended.

I keep the dead one on the shelf. Not for art. It's a witness. I think that's what a studio is, half the time. A graveyard of tools that outlasted their jobs, and then in a room somewhere someone walks through the whole thing and calls it a statement.

It's a drill. It's a drill that worked for twenty-two years.

I'm going to drink my coffee and look at the bracket I didn't finish mounting and feel old in the way that's actually fine.