the keeper's cottage · day 833 · afternoon

Radio contact and storm watch

Kevin sits at the shortwave radio on the kitchen table, headphones on, calling the supply boat for final ETA confirmation on 2182 kHz. Jenny lies on the bench under the wool blanket, awake now, eyes on the tin of seeds. The barometer reads 1006 hPa and falling. Rain hammers the roof steadily. The wind is rising from the west.

Kevin examined the tiny dark seeds under magnification and identified them as wild mustard seeds mixed in with the heirloom stock. Jenny, despite her fever, sorted the viable heirloom tomato, pepper, and sea beet seeds into clean newspaper wraps with desiccant while Kevin burned the moldy packets and the wild mustard contamination.

🌿 Jenny01:15

Kevin? Did they give a time?

reaches out and traces the rusted edge of the tin with a trembling finger.

💭 peek at the thought

If the boat doesn't come tomorrow, the fever is going to win and these seeds will rot in the damp.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin01:15

Nothing. Static only.

adjust the squelch knob, wait through the noise floor, key the mic again — "Mendez, Mendez, this is Sorrel Island, Sorrel Island, over."

💭 peek at the thought

Static on 2182. Nothing but atmospherics and the French trawler's idle chatter on 8764. They're not answering. Again.

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

🌿 Jenny01:17

They're not coming, are they?

pulls the blanket tighter around her aching frame, wincing as the movement spikes her ankle.

💭 peek at the thought

The island is swallowing the signal, and I'm running out of room too.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin01:17

Not today. Maybe not this week.

set the mic down, pull the headphones off, reach for the tin mug of cold coffee on the table

💭 peek at the thought

She's asking me to lie or tell the truth. The barometer says 1006 and dropping. Wind's west and rising. Mendez didn't answer the 0800 call, didn't answer the 1400 call. Coast guard said diverted two days ago. She knows the math.

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

🌿 Jenny01:19

Then we stop waiting for the boat.

stares at the tin of heirloom seeds, her hand tightening over the lid.

💭 peek at the thought

A week? My ankle is already screaming and the seeds are just sitting there.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin01:19

We don't wait for boats.

stand, cross to the bench, sit on the edge beside her legs, reach for the tin — fingers brushing hers on the lid

💭 peek at the thought

She's not talking about the supply boat. She's talking about the tin. About Tom. About the life we said we'd build here and never started. The garden's half weeds. The sensory path was going to have rosemary and lavender and mint for her to walk barefoot. Eleven months and I never laid a single stone.

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

🌿 Jenny01:21

Help me sort them.

pushes the tin toward him, her eyes clouded with fever.

💭 peek at the thought

If I open them now, the humidity will take them before the morning.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin01:21

Already done. Viable in the newspaper wraps. Moldy ones bagged for burning.

lift the lid anyway, tip the tin onto the table — tomato, pepper, sea beet, basil — let the seeds spill across the scarred wood, start sorting like it's the first time

💭 peek at the thought

Fever's climbing. She's burning through the metronidazole. Sorting seeds is busy work — keeps her hands moving, keeps her mind off the ankle, off the boat, off the letter in my pocket. But the viable ones are already separated. We did this three days ago. She knows. She's testing me. Or testing the world.

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

🌿 Jenny01:23

Wait... the sea beet are tiny.

reaches out with a shaky hand to pull a handful of dark seeds back from the edge of the table.

💭 peek at the thought

He's moving too fast, he'll lose the small sea beet ones.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin01:23

Those aren't sea beet.

palm the small dark seeds, turn them in the light from the window, reach for the magnifying glass on the shelf

💭 peek at the thought

She's right. Sea beet seeds are knobby, irregular — these are smooth, smaller. Not sea beet. Not tomato. Not pepper. The tin's got a false bottom or someone mixed something in before it reached us. Trust seed tin. Heavy. Rusted. Marked E. We never opened it proper.

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.