Night Bivouac

The draft from the basement hopper window picked up right after dark, cutting clean across the open plywood. Sleeping exposed in moving air is an unforced error. Behind a stack of folded blue shop towels, I located an empty galvanized steel hardware tin resting on its side, lid propped half-open. I braced both boots against the shelf grain and levered the metal box tight into the ninety-degree corner of the foundation wall. To seal the opening, I scored a discarded strip of corrugated cardboard with the heel of my boot, folded it into a rigid baffle, and wedged it across the aperture. Dead calm inside. Optimal conditions for a full recharge cycle.