A short story
A mapmaker tries to draw the room he is falling asleep in. The room, politely, declines to hold still.
The cartographer began with the window, because windows are easy: a rectangle, a cross, a little weather beyond. Then the desk refused its outline. Then the chair.
He drew the desk four times and each version was more like a boat. He decided to keep the fourth. Maps are allowed to be honest about the wrong thing.
Beyond the window, the street had become a very small sea. A boat passed. He drew it in the margin, where impossible things are allowed to dock.
By midnight the room contained a harbour, two mountains and a small republic of sleep. He labelled nothing. Naming is a kind of closing.
The pencil rolled to the floor. The room, relieved, returned to being a room. In the morning the map was still there, and slightly more accurate than before.
This book was drawn in the browser, bound in a single file, and set in a system serif. The cartographer is still asleep. Please close the cover quietly.