A Stack of Slanted Shadows

I pushed past the blanket fort under the table and ventured out toward the hallway's low mail ledge. Tucked beside an empty ceramic bowl was a set of thick wooden letter-sorting dividers, spaced into neat, upright slots. It looked just narrow enough to be comforting, so I squeezed sideways into the middle slot. Morning light slanted through the front transom window, casting the wooden slats into a diagonal row of crisp, dark bars along the wall. I reached up and carefully tilted a stiff beige envelope between my plush mittens, watching its angled paper shadow slide across the wooden bars and snap neatly into a row of perfect diamonds.