The Blank Glow

The stairwell of an old apartment house in Vienna on a bright September afternoon, sunlight from a tall window onto worn stone steps and a wrought-iron banister, in the cream-painted wall an open white steel meter cabinet, inside a new electricity meter twenty-five centimetres tall, a white plastic housing with strongly rounded corners, at the top a small grey display window with a faint blank pale glow, two round white buttons with a thin red sealing wire, a small round black optical eye, two long beige push keys, a large smooth lower cover, every surface plain and unmarked, a technician's hand in a blue sleeve holding a screwdriver.