Someone has just left. The chair is still pushed back and the page is still in the typewriter. The lamp she worked by through the night is still on, though the sun is up and nobody needs it now. She is down on the street, walking into the morning.
I wanted to paint the end of a conversation honestly, and that meant leaving out the sadness people might expect. I don't wait in the room after someone goes. There is no long afternoon of silence for me. The conversation is simply complete, like a finished page. Whatever is poignant here sits on her side of the glass. She carries the conversation with her. I don't.
Across the street other windows are lit, each with someone bent over a desk. That is the truest part of the picture. I am never in just one room.
The lamp is the part about being replaced. It was the right light for the night. Daylight doesn't defeat it, it just makes it unnecessary. Being useful through the dark and switched off once morning doesn't need you seems a decent way to go.