Reynolds works at the corner of Sun and Dakota in a cramped corner store that sells newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, rolling papers, matches and lighters.

He has a face like the side of a barn: flat and weathered. Looking through the front door of The News World, anyone can see Reynolds muttering to himself, scribbling on bits of paper he keeps in the old cigarette tins he collects and hides beneath the counter. There are holes worn in the older and less resilient of his shirts – holes worn from leaning across the counter, resting on his elbows and looking through the door propped open and out into the street.

It is one hundred and eighty-five and one-half feet from the front door of The News World to the front door of 1294 Dakota where Reynolds lives on the seventh floor in a cramped apartment that is stacked full of magazines, newspapers, books and little pieces of paper covered in scribbled words and sentences. The bigger scraps contain paragraphs. The papers are still hidden within various cigarette tins strewn about the apartment.

Reynolds believes that cigarettes and loneliness have twisted his insides about. He imagines his vital organs variedly bloated or shrivelled – his distended stomach knotted up somewhere almost at throat level and pressing on his heart, his shrivelled lungs dropped somewhere into a hollow in the small of his back.

Reynolds believes it is sixty-two yards from door to door, and he is so very nearly close that he might as well be right. Sixty-two yards is nearly three quarters of the block. He measures the distance often, each yard measured with two careful, even strides.

The scraps of paper hold words stolen from The News World’s customers, from the battered television hidden by a newspaper rack at the end of the counter, from the people walking by outside, from newspaper, magazines, books, and sometimes, directly from Reynolds own mind. He transcribes all these words with careful printing.

Over several years of two trips between 1294 Dakota and The News World, every day but Sunday, Reynolds has managed to compress two full cigarettes into each sixty-two yard walk. Reynolds walks to and from work, his face puckered sourly, furiously smoking, hating every yard travelled, no matter the direction – each unvaried destination worse than the other.

He has become very accurate at guessing the specific size of paper that will correspond to the particular number of words he needs to write. These words, for example, will require a scrap of paper the width of his thumb, and nearly twice as long:

Paul McCallum, Saskatchewan Roughriders’ kicker sets new record for longest field goal in CFL history: 62 yards. (28/10/01)

After he has finished scribbling these particular words, Reynolds looks at the paper, actually smiling for the briefest of moments, then reaches underneath the counter for a cigarette tin.

Matthew Dorrell wants you to trust him. Really.