As my mother apparently wants to go garage sale-ing this morning, I have to leave earlier than usual even though I'm getting a ride to work instead of taking the bus. This seems like witchcraft of the most devious variety to me. August is slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, I don't understand this.

The door opens into a small room with a straw-covered floor. In the centre of the room there is a large draped cage standing some two metres high. There is a cord fixed to the top of the drape which runs up through an iron ring in the ceiling and hangs down to the floor.