Source A: The doors before the lesson

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

The leisure centre looked like a machine for keeping people moving. Through the glass doors I saw wet footprints, a queue at the desk and a notice listing classes in tight columns. I had come for a beginner’s swimming session, but for a moment I wondered whether everyone else already knew the rules.

The receptionist handed me a key and pointed out the changing rooms. She did not hurry the people ahead of me, although the queue reached the door. One man could not find his locker number. She remembered that he preferred the lower row and walked round the desk to show him. It was a small exchange, almost hidden by the noise of the building.

At the pool, a child stood beside the steps, gripping a towel while the lesson began. The instructor waited, then asked the child to choose which step to try first. The rest of the group floated nearby. I had expected the session to be a sequence of instructions; instead, it seemed to depend on people noticing when someone needed time.

After the lesson, I sat by the window to let my hair dry. A caretaker moved a bench away from the entrance so a wheeled chair could pass without turning sideways. He did this without stopping his conversation with a colleague. The building still had its signs, queues and strict opening times. Yet its order seemed less like a machine now, and more like a set of small adjustments made by people who knew the place well.

On my way out, I looked again at the class list. The columns had not changed. I had. I had mistaken the visible rules for the whole character of the place, and the busy entrance for a warning that there was no room for a newcomer.

Source B: A chair near the door

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

I had helped arrange chairs in the community hall for years. Before the weekly supper, I would set them in neat rows, leaving a clear space at the front for the notices. People came in, greeted one another and found their usual places. I called this a welcoming room because nobody had ever told me otherwise.

One evening, a woman arrived while I was stacking cups. She paused just inside the doorway, holding her coat. The people nearest her were already talking across the rows. I smiled and said she could sit anywhere. She nodded, but stayed where she was until another guest moved a chair beside her and asked whether she would like tea.

I looked at the rows as if I had never seen them before. They made the room orderly, but they also divided the people who knew one another from the person who had come alone. I moved some chairs into a loose circle. The change took less than a minute; it did not make the woman speak, but it gave her a place in the conversation rather than a view of its back.

The next week, I put a small table by the entrance with cups and a handwritten welcome. Some regulars still chose their old seats. Others stayed to talk with people they had not met. I had thought hospitality was a matter of being cheerful when someone arrived. Now I saw that the way a room is arranged can answer a question before anyone asks it: is there space for me here?

I still set out the chairs. I no longer make the rows straight. The hall has not become a different building, but I have become less certain that a familiar room feels familiar to everyone.