By midmorning the snow behind the building had retreated to the edges, a thin crust clinging to shade and habit. The slope that runs down to the alley was streaked with mud, sand, and the gray residue that winter leaves behind when it runs out of purpose. A thin trickle of meltwater moved through the center like it knew the way.
Bits of the season had reappeared: a plastic bag caught under the railing, a paper cup half buried in grit, the broken corner of a picture frame I recognized from a delivery weeks ago. The glass was gone, but the wood still held the outline of something once worth keeping flat.
The alley carried its usual inventory—trucks, blue bins, exhaust, the low hum of refrigeration from the bakery two doors down. A man walked past with a broom, pushing small pieces of gravel toward the drain. The sound of the broom scraping the asphalt had its own tired rhythm.
I stood at the top of the slope for a while, watching the water collect at the bottom, then vanish under the lip of a metal grate. The city never repairs this patch; it only adjusts to it.
A few minutes later, I noticed a strip of cardboard pressed into the mud—part of a shipping label from last fall, still readable under the dirt. It carried the gallery’s name and a faint red stamp marked Fragile. The word looked misplaced now, like it had survived by accident. I bent down, peeled it loose, and set it on the railing to dry. The paper curled almost immediately, the ink turning soft at the edges.
Somewhere farther down the alley, a door slammed, and the echo took its time getting back. The air smelled faintly of wet plaster and diesel. I thought about how long it would take the slope to dry, or if it ever really did. The same runoff would pass this way next year, through the same grooves, collecting the same evidence.
When I turned to go back inside, I saw my own bootprints trailing behind me, already filling with melt. The slope keeps what it can until gravity insists otherwise.