My fingers pinch the sandpaper, the pressure hard on the cherry wood door. Six were rescued by well-meaning gleaners from a house doomed for demolition. It could have been Tikoulin. I cannot conceive that a house, constructed with workmanship and artistry, would be relegated to mere smoky dust. So much sweat, swearing and laughter shared over lunch break, on a half-rendered wall. It would only take the metal fist of a machine, two falls of the sledge-hammer, three crane bucket’s mastication to reduce the soul of a house to wood-ash. Have its memories had time to escape? Through a crack in the door, a chimney’s nostril, a shard of glass?