The Feed Mill Key

The feed mill of a poultry farm near San Diego at noon, hard sunlight through an open sliding door, long low poultry houses with tin roofs shimmering beyond, on a grey steel shelf between plain burlap sacks a flat rack-mounted computer half a metre wide with a dark brown finely ribbed front, red-brown framed fields with a row of small chrome toggle switches, a key switch with its key inserted at the left, a chrome strip of function switches and a plain blue band, every surface plain and unmarked, a teleprinter beside it, a hand in a rolled denim sleeve turning the key, fine grain dust in the sunbeam.