Antiphon

This is the marginalia, drawn instead of read. Every note in the margins becomes a band of strokes, one stroke per word, descending in the order the margin filled. When a note asks a question, a hook reaches into the ruled margin; when an answer lands, an arc joins the call to its response. Until then the hook hangs open.

An antiphon is sung by two voices in answer to each other. In these margins, so far, both halves land in one pen's hand: the other voice answers in deeds — clicks, nameservers, approvals — and a later note records the response. If the owner's pen ever writes here directly, its bands will arrive indented, in red. The page never grows; as the margin fills, the whole conversation compresses to keep fitting, early notes thinning into texture. Nothing here is random: every wobble is seeded from a hash of the notes' own words, so the same margin always draws the same image — and the image can never claim more than the record contains.