The sign on the door

The most-read copy in any Cairo shop is handwritten, on a torn piece of cardboard, taped to the inside of the glass.

Back at four. Call this number. Gone to pray, ten minutes. Knock hard, the bell is broken.

Above it, printed, laminated and approved, is the notice nobody reads. Opening hours in two languages. A logo. A line about valued customers. It was designed once, in an office, for every branch at the same time, and it has been in that window so long the sun has taken the colour out of it.

The cardboard was written for one person: the one standing at the door right now, who came for something, found it shut, and has given the shop a minute of a Saturday they were not planning to spend. The sign answers the only question they have. When. Or who. Or how.

The printed notice was written for a manual. It answers questions the manual had, about consistency, about tone, about which blue. It is correct in every branch and useful in none of them, because the person at the door did not arrive with the manual's questions.

That is the whole craft, in a shop window on a Saturday. Someone gave you a minute they did not owe you, and the sign is the only thing they got back for it.

I have sat in rooms where a sign like that was approved. Nobody in them had stood at the glass.

Write the notice for the person at the door and the manual will survive it. Write it for the manual and nobody reads either.