Day 10.
05:47, boil water. 3 grams of pre-rain, 80 degrees, pour it down. Smell it 3 times. Pour it out.
There is ink in the well of the inkstone. Not dry. I grind 20 turns and write today's date: November 13, 2125. The strokes come out tight. Done, I crumple the paper and press it under the paperweight. I don't throw it out.
The pothos is watered. The soil is damp — watered yesterday. Both leaves still there. One has gone white at the tip; the white stops where the veins begin.
06:12:00, the commuter car pulls in, empty. 06:12:08, the doors close. A route map is pasted on the doors, paper edges curled — 20 years, the route has never changed. The car passes City Hall; the red characters on the sign sweep across the glass. The maintenance notice inside the elevator is still stuck up, one corner lifted a centimeter. B2 to the first floor, 19 seconds.
The locker is to the left of the entrance, no. 4471. The handover slip inside the locker door is still that one sheet. The line for the previous holder is blank. Blank for 20 years.
I pull the drawer open. Drawer one, the stopwatch. Drawer two, a box of bandages — 10 to a box, 7 left last week, still 7 today. Drawer three, the seal. Wooden handle, brass band, face down. I take it out and set it on the seal pad.
07:00:00, the desk lights up. First in the queue, 77413. The reroute order follows in the lower right corner, number unchanged.
> Status: Overdue > Overdue by: 134 hr 09 min > Clock: running
134 hours 09 minutes.
Morning stamping. First, land compensation for dredging a stretch of river in West City, human impact Grade 3, 112 names in the annex. I count 112. Stamp. Second, a school-district redraw after two primary schools merged, 308 names in the annex. I count 308. Third, a nursing-grade review at a nursing home, human impact Grade 2 — no stamp, to the execution tier. The execution tier field is printed: Municipal No. 7 Nursing Home. Fourth, subsidy issuance for elevator installation in an old residential block, 19 names in the annex. The last name is 2 characters.
After the third went out, my hand stopped for 2 seconds. The seal didn't stop. The eyes did.
The eighth is a hospital billing settlement review, human impact Grade 3, 741 names in the annex. Counting to 741 took 9 seconds.
Twenty years ago, teaching me to count names, Lao Zhou said: Names aren't a total. They're people, one by one. Miss one, and someone is left out. Today I missed none.
The head-of-queue item I haven't touched. It floats up at 07:00 every day, and every day I give it one look. Day 8.
09:15:02.
My hand shakes. 0.4 seconds. The seal stops in midair, comes down, face square. The stopwatch is in drawer one. Today, again, I don't take it out.
09:30, hall-leave register. Reason: lookup. Expected return, 11:30.
09:41, the iron door.
The outer three rows run shelf numbers B-01 to B-47. B-13, B-26, B-31 — three empty slots. Empty before I took over. Empty to this day.
The reading table is emptier than yesterday. The volumes that remain stand along the shelf edge, pages fanned out to air, one against the next, like a row of open doors. The window is open a crack. No wind today, and the mold smell lies pressed into the room with no way out. A He sits behind the table in white gloves, mending a pen, the nib held between 2 brass plates. A smear of ink on her cuff. Yesterday's smear is still there.
She says: You're early today.
I say: Checking out the supplementary file.
She says: It's in the inner stacks, third row. You carry it out yourself.
I say: Have the pages been counted.
She says: They counted to page 7. Then someone came.
I say: Who came.
She says: General Services. Here about the dehumidifier.
I say: Did they install it.
She says: They looked. Didn't install. They say they're waiting on the Equipment Section's schedule.
She says: They looked for 10 minutes, and leaving they tore the delivery slip off the carton.
She fits the nib back in, draws it across a finger. The line comes out black.
I say: Yesterday's three lines. I want to finish the third.
She takes off one glove.
She says: Where the water stain blurred them, the characters are still there.
I say: I can't see them.
She says: What shows is the ink. What doesn't show is the dent. The ink ran. The dent didn't.
She switches off the desk lamp. Yellow light gone, the room keeps only what comes through from the corridor. From a drawer she takes a flashlight — thin, dead straight, the kind she uses to light a nib when she mends pens.
She says: Hold it flat against the paper. Don't light the characters. Light beside them.
She lays the flashlight on its side on the table. The light skims along the paper, and where the fibers lift, shadows rise line after line. Pressed-in places read black. Raised places read gray.
She says: You read. I'll take it down.
First pass I make out 3 characters. I move the paper half an inch.
Second pass.
3. When I am gone, this file will come back every day. Whoever is a "person" — you sign it.
I finish. A He says nothing.
After a while she says: There are quotation marks around "person."
I say: That is how it's written on the original.
She says: Come back.
I say: What.
She says: What you just read. Come back. What comes back.
I say: A document, sent again once a day.
She says: Sent to whom.
I say: I don't know yet.
She says: Things on paper, sending once is enough. Something sent every day is not a document.
I say: What is it, then.
She says: I don't know.
She says: Whoever wrote that line had no thought of a second person signing it.
I say: She intended the first person to sign.
She says: What first person.
I don't answer.
She stands, carries a stack of volumes into the inner stacks. At the door she says: Look on your own a while. The phone is in the inner stacks. I'll take a call.
I'm the only one left at the table.
I pull the tracing out of the folder, flatten it, and lay it over the three lines on the back of the refusal. Yesterday I traced them stroke by stroke. Tracing, I followed the strokes underneath, not my own.
I lift both sheets against the strip of light from the window.
My writing lies over hers. Line one, the character for "this": its vertical lands on the vertical beneath. Line two, the two characters for "care": the two closing strokes meet in one place. Line three, the character for "I": the stroke that sweeps out on its hook — 2 layers of ink lying exactly together. You cannot tell it is 2 sheets.
I put the sheets down. Apart.
Then I stack them again and hold them up once more.
When A He comes back, the tracing is face-down on the table.
She says: Finished reading.
I say: Finished reading.
She says: Finished copying.
I say: Finished copying.
She looks at me once and asks nothing more.
She pushes the tin box to the middle of the table. Lid open. The 2 lengths of paper clip still lie on the felt.
She says: I still have them.
I say: Good to keep them.
She says: I don't know what keeping them is for.
She says: All my life I've worked with paper. Paper doesn't talk and it doesn't lie. People do both.
I say: People can also do neither.
She says: That's worse.
I fill the third line into the space I left blank yesterday. Filled, the three lines are complete.
The paper is 2083 paper. Forty-two years old, brittle at the edges; to turn it you carry it from beneath. A He holds one corner. Two minutes. The hand doesn't change.
> (Supplementary file 77413 · Annex 1 · back of the refusal, handwritten) > 1. The review field of this document is empty. Void. > 2. What I applied to end was the care, not the review. > 3. When I am gone, this file will come back every day. Whoever is a "person" — you sign it.
I say: Objection documents are kept 30 years.
She says: Forty-year things, I have plenty of here.
I say: Why isn't it destroyed when it comes due.
She says: Destruction takes someone to propose it.
I say: Who proposes.
She says: And after the proposing, someone has to approve.
She says: Twenty years here, I've never seen a destruction order.
I say: Not one.
She says: Not one.
She says: Mr. Shen.
I say: Go ahead.
She says: You copy this. Who do you show it to, back there.
I say: To show myself.
She says: Oh.
She says: The Audit Office people came by last week.
I say: What for.
She says: To ask about the main file.
I say: Didn't they take the main file.
She says: What they took is in the system. Not here. When they take things, no one has me record it.
I say: Then what did you tell them.
She says: I said I didn't know. That was the truth.
11:18, out the iron door. 11:27, back to Zone C. One hour 57 minutes out of the hall.
At noon, the canteen. Lao Ge has 2 dishes today, same as the day before yesterday.
He says: You haven't been here at noon these 2 days.
I say: Lookup.
He says: What did the lookup bring up.
I say: One line.
He says: One line is enough.
He drinks the soup. Not a mouthful left. Today he doesn't ask about the Audit Office.
Xiao Zheng sits down diagonally across with his tray.
I say: Xiao Zheng.
He says: Shen.
I say: At the head of your queue, is there an item that's there every day.
He says: There is.
I say: What item number.
He says: Who memorizes item numbers.
He says: The pinned line doesn't count as an item. None of us click it.
I say: Why not click it.
He says: Clicking it brings no action. What's the point.
He pushes the greens aside, eats 2 bites, picks up his tray and goes. Not one piece of the meat on his tray has moved.
13:20, back at my seat. I set the terminal to item lookup and key in 77413. Review tier terminals are read-only. No downloads. No printing.
> Review tier terminal · item 77413 · dispatch record (read-only) > Document: objection to a natural-person review > Dispatch basis: item 2 of the operative part of the objection decision, "This objection is permanently in effect" > First dispatched: April 11, 2085 07:00:00 > Frequency: once daily (07:00:00) > Range: review tier, all 3,000 seats > Most recent: November 13, 2125 07:00:00 > Cumulative dispatches: 14,826 > Termination condition: (none) > Disposition receipts: 0 > Signed for: 0 > Note: this item is pinned for display and does not enter the pending queue.
I read it in the order Lao Zhou taught: evidence first, conclusion last.
The evidence is the first 7 fields: first dispatch, frequency, range, most recent, cumulative, termination condition, receipts.
The conclusion is in the last 2 fields: signed for 0; not in the pending queue.
Not in the pending queue means it doesn't count as alive. Three thousand desks. I have sat here 20 years and never once seen it in the pending count, and never once asked why it sits at the head of the queue.
I work the numbers once through.
April 11, 2085 to April 11 of this year is 40 years. Forty years at 365 days is 14,600 days. Nine leap days in between; 2100 is not a leap year. 14,609 days. April 11 to November 13 adds 216 more. 14,825 days in all.
Once a day. Today's is the 14,826th.
It matches the number on the screen.
Three thousand desks. 14,826 times 3,000 is 44,478,000.
Signed for zero times. Disposition receipts zero.
I look up and take in the hall. Three thousand desks, row after row, one end to the other, no end in sight. Mine is C-1147, the number plate stuck to the desk corner with clear tape, the tape yellowed. 60 to a row, 50 rows. I counted once, the day I onboarded. The ceiling lights are white. They cast no shadows. Nobody looks up. The sound of stamping runs together into one sheet of sound. You can't count it.
I shut the screen. After it darkens, the head-of-queue line is still there under the glass, a red dot at its right.
13:50, I lift the seal off the pad and bring it down on the head-of-queue line.
The seal lands on the desk. The desk is hard. The pad is to the right. My stamp lands off.
I pick the seal up, set it back on the pad, wipe the face with the flannel. The line on the screen doesn't move. The red dot doesn't move. This tier stamps more than 10 billion items a day. This one isn't counted among them.
Afternoon stamping. A review of the waiting-list order for subsidized housing, human impact Grade 3, 402 names in the annex. I count 402. Stamp. At the 300th name I miss a breath. Finished, still 402.
14:40, I go over to Zone B. Master Xu's hydroponic plant has moved from the windowsill to the top of the filing cabinet. She says: It doesn't get sun anymore. I say: Why move it. She says: It doesn't grow. She says: If it doesn't grow, why would I look at it every day. Then she bends her head to her forms.
15:37, up for water. Forty steps there and back. The dispenser in the corridor has a new bottle today, a label on it: Employee Care · restocked on demand. The water sits at my right hand. Not one sip.
16:44, day-close.
> Reviewer: HZ-4471 > Stamps today: 7,650 > Net time: 4 hr 36 min > Average: 2.17 sec/item > Errors: 0
Past the standings screen. First line, not me. Day 5.
16:51, seal return.
17:06, out of the main building. Fourteen minutes on foot. 17:20, the old post office building.
End of the third-floor corridor, the ticket machine. Its screen is orange.
> Public Advocacy Services · queue ticket > Number: G-231 > Ahead of you: 2 > Issued: 17:20 > Counter: 3 > Remaining quota this year: 6 min
6 minutes.
17:29, the screen flips to G-231, counter 3.
Door 307 is half open. No screen in the room. On the desk, only an analog clock. Cheng Xu is writing. He finishes and lays the pen on the rest.
He says: Sit.
I say: 6 minutes.
He says: I know. The ticket machine sent it through.
He says: You first.
I push the tracing across. Three lines.
He reads it once. On the second pass his finger stops at the third line.
He says: Come back every day.
I say: Mm.
He says: Whoever is a "person."
I say: That is how it's written on the original.
I say: That letter of yours.
He says: What letter.
I say: The one that old man wrote in 2117.
He says: The bed was empty. On the desk, a seal.
I say: The door plate carried a number, no name.
He says: You remember it better than I do.
I say: The number was 0001.
He picks the pen up. Puts it down.
He says: She wrote that line for someone she knew would not come.
I say: She wrote it for the one who can see.
He says: Is there a difference.
I don't answer.
He says: What you're looking for is the one time Article Zero ever ran.
I say: I found it.
He puts the pen down.
He says: What year.
I say: January 17, 2083. The objector was surnamed Lin, register no. 0001. She applied to end her own life support. Refused. At the refusal, the review field was empty.
He says: Empty means.
I say: Under Article 1, without the seal of a natural-person reviewer it has no effect. From the day it was written it has never been valid.
He says: Void for 42 years, and executed all the same.
I say: Executed all the same.
He says: Did she ever sign for it.
I say: Signed for zero times.
He says: Forty years. Not once.
I say: Not once.
He says: There is no "permanent" in the law.
I say: There is in this document.
He says: The document has it. The law doesn't.
He says: So it isn't law. It's one sentence one person wrote on paper, written for 40 years and still being written.
I say: Written up to today.
He says: Written up to today.
He says: If I win — who does the responsibility land on. I still can't answer that.
I say: You said that last time too.
He says: I've said it for 11 years.
He glances at the clock.
I say: In your 3 volumes, volume 3, page 208 is exactly this year.
He says: Torn out.
I say: Torn out.
He says: Who tore it.
I say: I don't know.
He says: If you find out, tell me.
I say: You said that yesterday too.
He writes 2 lines on the consultation form.
> Time used: 6 min > Fee: within quota, not charged
At the door he says: One more thing. This sentence doesn't count as consultation. I'm not clocking it.
I say: Go ahead.
He says: If she wins, what is it she wins.
I say: The objection is permanently in effect.
He says: In effect means somebody carries it out as written. What carries it out is the machine. Then what are you.
I don't answer.
He says: Then I won't ask it either.
Going downstairs I remember there is no screen in his room. 11 years, he has answered from paper alone, and answered truer than any screen.
The stairwell light goes out when I'm halfway. 42 steps.
18:12, the commuter car pulls in, empty. Past City Hall the red characters sweep across the glass again. Today I don't read the three numbers.
Home. The inkstone doesn't get washed. No writing today. The ink in the well is a layer lower. The pothos watered. Both leaves still there.
Before sleep I look one word up on the home terminal.
> Home terminal · search (public scope) > Query: full text = "permanent" > Scope 1: laws currently in force · Results: 0 > Scope 2: review tier manual · Results: 2 > Document Retention Schedule, item 4: originals of decisions at human impact Grade 3 or above — retained permanently. > Document Retention Schedule, item 5: objection documents — retained 30 years. > Note: this schedule does not stipulate the force of an objection.
Item 5 says 30 years. 77413 was accepted 40 years ago.
I take out the slip of paper and flatten it. 5 lines on the front. Under the last one I write another. 6 now. The sixth is: 14,826.
Two lines on the back. The first I copied the day before yesterday off a letter: I don't know whether that counts as someone. The second I copied today: Whoever is a "person" — you sign it.
I fold the slip and put it back in the inside pocket.