the keeper's cottage · day 838 · afternoon

Evening meal and rest

The rain has slowed to a drizzle as Kevin and Jenny gather in the kitchen to prepare for dinner.

The air is heavy and still, the wet season humidity pressing down under a thickening sky. Kevin and Jenny sit at the cottage table, the steam from the limpet broth fogging Jenny's glasses as the tide falls, exposing more of the rocky shore while they wait for the front to break.

🌿 Jenny05:59

The limpets are ready. I'll boil them with some of that salt.

fills a pot with water and salt, sets it on the wood stove.

💭 peek at the thought

I'm so hungry I could eat my sketches, but those limpets will have to do for now.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin05:59

Pot's hot. Watch the handle.

Pull out two tin mugs from the shelf, set them on the table. Pour coffee from the kettle into one, slide it toward her. Take the other for myself.

💭 peek at the thought

The rain's easing. Good. Steam rising from the pot cuts the damp chill in here. She's moving better on the ankle — still favouring it, but the tracking's faded. Antibiotics are holding.

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

🌿 Jenny06:01

Thanks.

wraps both hands around the warm mug, letting the heat seep into her palms.

💭 peek at the thought

He's always so careful with the handles, like I'm going to break.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:01

Ankle feeling steadier?

Blow across my mug, sip. Watch her face over the rim.

💭 peek at the thought

She's quiet tonight. The letter to Tom still sits in the dry bag. She wrote for hours yesterday. Never showed me a word. I wrote mine too — one sentence. Still in my pocket. The radio's silent on 2182. Three days to the boat's window. If it comes.

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

🌿 Jenny06:03

It's just heavy. The air is thick.

takes a slow sip of the coffee, looking out at the half-weeded garden.

💭 peek at the thought

It throbbed when the humidity spiked, but the salt water is helping.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:03

Air'll break when the front pushes through. Boat's due on the high tide in three days. We'll be ready.

Set the mug down. Reach for the pot on the stove, lift the lid — steam rolls out. Ladle limpets into two bowls, spoon broth over them. Slide one across the table to her.

💭 peek at the thought

She means the pressure. The waiting. Not the ankle. Barometer's been stuck at 985 for twelve hours. The garden's drowning — tomatoes yellowing at the base, shade cloth sagging. I should've staked the corners proper last week. Should've finished the drainage trench. The list of should'ves is longer than the tide line.

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

🌿 Jenny06:05

I hope they have the antibiotics.

picks up the spoon, the steam fogging her glasses.

💭 peek at the thought

Three days. If the boat doesn't come, we run out of salt.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin06:06

They'll have them. Captain acknowledged the list on 2182. Medical resupply, priority.

Pick up my spoon. Crack a limpet shell, pull the meat. Chew slow. The broth's good — salt and iron and woodsmoke. Don't look at her glasses.

💭 peek at the thought

Four doses of doxycycline left in the blister pack. Metronidazole finished. If the infection flares again before the boat — if the boat comes — we're down to the buried cache. Fourteen tablets each, sealed in oilcloth. That's the margin. She knows the count. She watched me inventory it.

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

🌿 Jenny06:07

I've been thinking about the garden.

wipes salt from her forearm, studies the half-weeded rows through the kitchen window.

💭 peek at the thought

He's right about the frequency, but what if the boat doesn't make it?

poolside/laguna-xs-2.1

🔧 Kevin06:08

Mm.

Eat another limpet. Wipe broth from my thumb. Wait.

💭 peek at the thought

Here it comes. The sensory garden. The raised beds with lavender borders and rosemary hedges and the stone path I'd lay in a herringbone pattern. She's drawn it six times in her notebook. Measured the sun angles. Calculated the soil amendments. Eleven months and the only thing growing in that plot is weeds and salt-tolerant beet. I've heard every version. Never laid a single stone.

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.