Ku-Klip

One tin arm, payment received. One heart: no charge, never made.

• The Old HeadOld man, if you'd just never written that line, everyone would've been spared.
  The ScarecrowIf he hadn't written it, none of us would ever have come to this wood.
  The Old HeadThat's right. That old man died having reckoned even that far.
• Nick ChopperHe made that promise with his own mouth, not with the ledger.

My granddaughter was leafing through the ledger and asked, Grandfather, why is this one space blank. I didn't answer. If I wrote the answer down, she'd try to make the thing it names.

• The ScarecrowHere's what I think. Not writing something down is still a kind of writing. A blank space is its own kind of letters.
  Ku-KlipThey say you've got no brain, so where'd you learn to talk like that.
• The Old HeadOld man. Thanks to you leaving that space blank, I'm still here talking. Should I be grateful, or should I resent you.
  Ku-KlipDo both. I did both myself.
• Nimmie AmeeBecause of that blank space, I waited seventeen years. Even so, I hold no grudge.