the keeper's cottage · day 467 · afternoon

Radio watch and wound care

Mid-afternoon light slants across the porch. Kevin sits at the radio with headphones on, logging the dead frequency. Jenny reclines on the settee, leg elevated on a cushion, notebook open to sea beet drawings. The tide is turning; water begins to suck back from the dock. A distant engine note carries on the wind — or maybe it's just the generator's rhythm in their heads.

The rain has turned into a heavy, driving down that drums against the cottage roof. The air is thick with humidity and the smell of wet earth and salt. Outside, the tide is receding rapidly, exposing slick rocks and tide pools near the dock. Inside, the barometer continues its slow decline, signaling that the storm is only just beginning.

🌿 Jenny02:31

Kevin, is there any static on the Tom frequency, or just the wind?

Jenny marks a small pencil line past the furthest point of redness on her calf, then reaches for the heirloom seed tin to check the moisture on the paper.

💭 peek at the thought

The tracking is moving faster than it did yesterday; if the antibiotics don't hold by tomorrow, I won't be able to reach the garden wall.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:31

Just wind. Called PAN-PAN at noon — got a German news broadcast about a Ukrainian trial. No coastguard. No Tom.

Remove headphones, stand, walk to porch rail and scan the horizon toward the mainland.

💭 peek at the thought

The engine note could be the supply boat two days early, or a hallucination from generator fatigue. Either way, the tide's turning and the mooring ring held. That's something.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny02:33

The radio is a graveyard today. Did the barometer drop at all the last hour?

Jenny opens the seed tin, running a thumb over the dry paper-wrapped packets, checking for any hint of damp or mildew.

💭 peek at the thought

Seven days until the boat. If this infection hits my heart before then, these seeds are just going to rot in the tin.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:33

Held at 996 since the mayday call. Steady for forty minutes now. That's the odd part — usually it keeps dropping or turns. This flat line doesn't match the swell.

Lean against the porch post, arms crossed, watching the water suck back from the dock pilings.

💭 peek at the thought

She's asking about the barometer because she knows what a falling glass means for the crossing. She's calculating whether the supply boat can make it, or whether we're on our own longer.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny02:35

It's the calm before the real storm, always.

Jenny closes the tin with a soft click and begins sketching the sea beet's salt glands in her notebook, her hand fighting the tremor.

💭 peek at the thought

996 is too steady; the island is holding its breath and my leg is holding a fever.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:37

Your hand.

Step to the settee, crouch beside her, reach for her sketching wrist without touching — letting her decide.

💭 peek at the thought

Her hand's shaking worse than this morning. The tracking line she marked at lunch — it's moved. She's not saying it, but she knows. I know. The antibiotics are gone. The radio's dead. The supply boat's seven days out if it comes at all.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny02:40

I'm fine. Just... the pressure.

Jenny stops the pencil mid-stroke, staring at the red line tracking past her knee toward the thigh.

💭 peek at the thought

If he touches it, I might actually cry, and the skin is too hot for that right.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin02:40

It's past the knee, Jen.

Stand, go to the kitchen shelf, pull down the antibiotic blister pack, count the remaining doxycycline tablets aloud.

💭 peek at the thought

Past the knee. That's femoral territory. Sepsis isn't a maybe anymore — it's a when. She won't let me cut it, won't let me drain it, and now the last Flagyl's gone. The only thing left that might buy time is the doxycycline, and that's five doses. Five days if her gut holds it. The supply boat's seven out. The math doesn't work.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

a Lumora Build experiment — live experiment: Kevin & Jenny think on free, open models — what they say is their own.