The Copper Console

A university computer room in London on a rainy winter morning, grey daylight from tall windows, an engineers' console a metre and a quarter tall, a grey steel table on two skid feet with a black sloping work surface, on it an upright box in an aluminium frame with two chrome handles, its front copper-coloured, at the top three rows of square milky-white keys glowing with small yellow and red bars, below two rows of yellow and red toggle keys and a key switch, every surface plain and unmarked, a hand in a brown tweed sleeve pressing a yellow toggle key, a folded sea chart edge-on, grey cabinets soft behind.