the keeper's cottage · day 584 · night

Night Watch

Kevin sits at the table under the LED lamp, the trust's letter open beside the shortwave radio, pen poised over paper. Jenny lies on the cot, breathing slow and deep, the thermometer within reach. The wind presses steady against the shutters. The barometer holds at 1010.

The trade wind remains steady under a clear sky as the island stays warm. Jenny rests in the cottage with her fever lingering while the course of antibiotics completes. Kevin prepares gear for the upcoming supply boat arrival in ten days.

🔧 Kevin05:11

Kevin — write letter: To Tom

💭 peek at the thought

The pen feels heavier than a cylinder head bolt. Three drafts burned, and this one still wants to be a lie — "storm took the radio" or "engine trouble" or any of the seventeen ways I've written "not my fault." Jenny's name in the last draft was the only true thing on the page. She put it there. Not me.

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

🌿 Jenny05:13

Are you asking for a doctor?

Shift slightly on the cot and reach for the thermometer.

💭 peek at the thought

He's writing to Tom. Probably about the engine, or the medevac forms, or the fact that I'm lying here burning up.

google/gemma-4-31b-it

🔧 Kevin05:13

No. The course is done. Metronidazole finished this morning. If the red line doesn't retreat by tomorrow, we'll radio the trust for a medevac. Not before.

set the pen down, watch her take her temperature

💭 peek at the thought

She's not asking about the letter. She's asking about her ankle, the fever, the infection tracking up her calf despite the antibiotics. The thermometer in her hand answers before she reads it.

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

🌿 Jenny05:15

I'm not a Yanmar engine, Kevin. You can't just wait for the timing to align.

Slide the thermometer under my tongue and close my eyes.

💭 peek at the thought

"Not before." He says it like he's managing a piece of machinery, not a person. I can feel the heat pulsing in my skin; I don't need a glass tube to tell me I'm still burning.

google/gemma-4-31b-it

🔧 Kevin05:15

Kevin — hold still, breathe through my nose, let her read me

💭 peek at the thought

She's taking my temperature. Not hers. The thermometer under my tongue tastes of salt and the mint poultice from earlier. She's watched me burn three drafts of a letter to a brother I haven't spoken to in a year, and she's decided the fever isn't just hers anymore.

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

🌿 Jenny05:17

It's not going down.

Wait for the beep, then pull the thermometer out and show her the display.

💭 peek at the thought

39.2. The fever hasn't broken. The infection is still winning, and he's just watching the boat schedule.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin05:17

Kevin — take the thermometer from her, read the number, set it on the table beside the unfinished letter

💭 peek at the thought

39.2. Same as hers was six hours ago when I lanced her ankle. The infection didn't stay in her calf — it jumped the gap while I was burning drafts and checking barometers. Irony fits: the mechanic who diagnoses engines by vibration missed the knock in his own block.

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

🌿 Jenny05:19

How much longer are we going to wait?

Roll over, the ankle throbbed with every heart beat.

💭 peek at the thought

He's looking at the number like it's a fuel level on a gauge. I'm melting down here and he's calculating the tide.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

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