The Pink Tape

An engineer's office at a university in Dresden on a snowy afternoon, bluish window light and a green-shaded desk lamp, on a wooden desk a computer fifty-eight centimetres wide in pale grey brushed sheet metal, its front a dark petrol-blue panel, at the upper left two paper tape spools, one clear, one wound with salmon-pink tape, two black empty spools below, at the upper right a dark blue box, below it two rows of round grey and yellow lamp buttons, at the bottom a projecting grey ledge of dark brown cube keys, every surface plain and unmarked, a hand pressing a brown key, a curl of pink tape over the desk edge.