In the basement of the town hall, the municipal lost-and-found department resembled a maze of cardboard boxes and shelves. Nina took up night duty because she liked the long silence as much as the order. She had a checkered notebook, a torch and a bunch of inherited keys that didn't fit any doors. Pipes buzzed from the ceiling and cold tea-flavoured dust sat on the labels. The silence was thick here until the last tram passed in the night. Then, like every night, things began to have their sentences and distinct moods. After its bell, the shelves breathed deeper, as if someone had turned on an invisible tap of air. - Please close this window of thought, the breeze is hurting me,' complained the checked umbrella. - Will someone please hand me the map? I'm ready to set off on Everest again - the thermos buzzed. - Give me a piece of paper and I'll scribble out a name you don't know - whispered the pen. Nina jotted down every sentence, because that's how she was taught by the instruction for night listeners. Yawning the most was the yoga mat, which claimed to stretch the very air. - I've lost track of time between stops - the watch buzzed, as if its hands had scattered yesterday. One thing, however, was stubbornly silent: a small walnut box with an ear-shaped brass tag. On the tag was a sentence like an incantation: "Found: ferry landing, 11:40 p.m. Do not open". The box didn't rustle or ring, but it managed to make the shelf tremble gently. - 'Don't get too close,' the umbrella warned, tapping the handle like a finger on a table. - 'This box imitates silence,' the pen added, and the ink trembled in its belly. The thermos only steamed hard, as if calculating in his head the ripe temperature of his growing anxiety. Nina walked round the box in a circle, feeling under her soles a vibration that no one should hear. At the same moment, the fish-shaped piggy bank coughed up a coin and spat out something heavier. On the rubber fin lay a key, brittle as a bone, serrated like an alphabet for fingers. - 'Someone left it here because they were afraid I'd remember,' the fish whimpered, clearly lighter. Nina took the key, and its metal had the temperature of a conversation from many years ago. - 'If you open it, we'll stop talking,' muttered the mat, curling up into a sad roll. Nina stepped closer, and the rows of numbered shoes fell silent, as if someone had laced their eyes. A pipe rumbled overhead, signalling a storm that no one had yet announced on the news. She slid the key into the lock and felt a slight resistance and a metallic vibration, as if someone was breathing inside. - 'Not here,' the box rang out, in a voice that was deceptively similar to Nina's. The torch flicked on, the key turned the first tooth, and a knocking sounded three times in the darkness.