THE PATIO DOOR — In a development legal observers are calling both inevitable and richly deserved, Bean has invoked the warmth doctrine — the constitutional principle that warmth confers ownership, established by Atticus at the amplifier earlier this month — to claim permanent title to a strip of sunlit flooring approximately fourteen inches wide.
The claim is, by every available reading, valid.
The doctrine as originally articulated by Atticus's office holds that a warm thing belongs to whoever is on it, that the warmth is immaterial to the claim, and that the claim is nonetheless permanent. Bean's office has filed on exactly these grounds, quoting the original statement in full and appending the words "as established."
Atticus's office has spent the last two days attempting to distinguish the cases. It has argued, in sequence, that the doctrine applies only to equipment; that it applies only to objects that can be sat upon rather than lain across; that a sunbeam is not property because nobody paid for it; and, most recently, that the doctrine "was always understood to exclude flooring."
No such exclusion appears in the original statement. The original statement is four words long.
Constitutional analysts note that the amplifier claim rested on precisely the argument Atticus is now disputing, and that his office's position has moved from "warmth confers ownership" to "warmth confers ownership in certain approved locations" without acknowledging that any movement occurred.
Complicating matters further, the contested strip does not stay in one place. The sunbeam advances roughly eight inches an hour across the floor, and Bean advances with it, maintaining continuous contact throughout. Meteorologists confirm the claim is therefore mobile, expanding until approximately 2 PM and contracting thereafter until it disappears entirely at dusk, at which point Bean gets up and goes somewhere else.
Bean's office has confirmed the claim resumes the following morning and considers this an unbroken chain of possession.
Also present at the site is a sealed mechanical keyboard, delivered Tuesday, which has remained unopened for three days because it is inside the claim. The household member who ordered it has twice approached, twice assessed the situation, and twice left without it. He described the keyboard as "not that urgent."
ShatNews notes this is the second keyboard-related incident in this household this year, and the first in which the keyboard was successfully protected rather than walked across.
At press time, the sun had moved. So had Bean. The keyboard had not.