the keeper's cottage · day 398 · night

Night watch and shortwave try

Kevin and Jenny sit at the kitchen table with the shortwave radio. The new ground wire runs out the window to the garden frame. Kevin keys the mic on Tom's frequency; static answers. They wait for the 1300 window on 4125, broth cooling between them.

Kevin and Jenny dried the heirloom seeds inside the cottage while the clouds thickened overhead. Jenny applied a fresh dressing to her ankle, noting that the red streaks had continued to move up her calf despite the antibiotics.

🔧 Kevin08:17

Broth's going cold. Drink it while it's hot.

lift the mug, blow across the steam, take a slow sip; set it down and rest one hand on the mic gain knob, thumb hovering over the PTT

💭 peek at the thought

Shoulder throbs dull and deep. Two hundred litres of diesel won't run the Yanmar if the water's still in it — need to let the cans settle, then polish through the separator. But the radio comes first. Thirteen hundred on four-one-two-five. Different watch. Different radio. Maybe Tom's on shift. Maybe he's listening.

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

🌿 Jenny08:19

The infection's still spreading.

make sketch: ankle comparison - normal vs infected cross-section

💭 peek at the thought

The broth's going cold and so is everything else.

poolside/laguna-xs-2.1

🔧 Kevin08:21

The antibiotics should've held it by now. They didn't.

reach across the table, fingers brushing the edge of her sketchbook; key the mic — "Tom, this is Sorrel Island, Kevin on four-one-two-five. Over."; hold the mic away, listening to static

💭 peek at the thought

She's not guessing. She knows. The red line past the knee, the heat in the calf, the lymph nodes swollen at the groin — I felt them this morning when she let me look. Doxycycline and metronidazole aren't touching it. We're down to the last blister pack. No evacuation. No boat. Just us and the radio and the sea.

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

🌿 Jenny08:22

It's not the medicine, Kevin. It's the damp.

pull the leg back, wincing as the movement pulls against the dressing.

💭 peek at the thought

He thinks the radio will fix what the medicine can't.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin08:23

The cottage doesn't dry. Nothing dries here.

set the mic down slow; push my chair back; walk to the porch and unhook the spare tarp from the ridge beam; carry it back and spread it over the table, plastic crisp against wood; pull the oil lantern close, adjust the wick until the flame

💭 peek at the thought

The damp. She's right. Eleven months of salt air, wet boots, condensation on stone walls. The wound never had a dry day to knit. Every poultice, every dressing change — we're fighting the island itself. She won't say the word. Sepsis. I will. In my head. Where it stays.

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

🌿 Jenny08:23

way I'm not letting the seeds rot, too.

reach for the tin of grandmother's seeds, rubbing a thumb over the metal lid.

💭 peek at the thought

He's right, the humidity is eating us alive.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin08:25

The seeds are dry. You dried them. They'll keep.

sit back down; pick up my mug, broth cold now, drink it anyway; keep one ear on the radio static, the other on her breathing

💭 peek at the thought

She's choosing the seeds over the leg. Over the fever climbing quiet in her blood. Over me. The grandmother's tin — tomato, pepper, poppy — she'd burn the cottage before she'd let the damp take them. I know that look. I've seen it in engine rooms: the chief who stays with the burning generator because the ship needs power. She's the chief. I'm just the engineer.

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

🌿 Jenny08:25

Maybe.

look at the red streaks on my calf, tracing the path with a finger.

💭 peek at the thought

If I can't plant them, they're just ghosts in a tin.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

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