The Blue Key

A narrow study in an old apartment in Graz on a spring morning, pale sunlight from a tall window falling across a walnut writing desk, on the desk a wide flat decoder of matt black plastic, a fine ventilation grille across its rear edge, in front a keyboard of plain cream-white keys, blank and unmarked, at the right a small keypad with one blue key and one red key, a smooth black palm rest along the front edge, a hand in a knitted sleeve resting one finger on the blue key, a grey cable running to a small colour television whose curved screen glows with coarse blocks of red, yellow and cyan.