Day 17.
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. Twenty turns. I write today's date: November 20, 2125. The strokes come out tight. Done, I crumple the paper and press it under the paperweight.
The pothos is watered. The soil is damp. Both leaves still there.
06:12:00, the commuter car pulls in, empty. 06:12:08, the doors close. The car passes City Hall; the red characters on the sign sweep across the glass.
The locker is to the left of the entrance, no. 4471. Drawer two, 7 bandages. Drawer three, the seal.
The new card pins at the left breast. The pin tight. From the locker room to Zone C, I press it 3 times.
07:00:00, the desk lights up. First in the queue, 77413. The reroute order follows in the lower right corner.
> Status: Overdue > Overdue by: 302 hr 09 min > Clock: running
The head-of-queue item I haven't touched. Day 15. Today it resends for the 14,833rd time.
07:10, a metal cart comes down my row, carrying paper approval pages, bound, for the count. At the same moment a notice pops up at the top right of the desk.
> Head Office review tier · annual backlog count (Zone C · Row 14) > Scope: bound volumes of paper approval pages, years 2002 — 2011 > Method: every volume, every page, by hand · count · sign the employee no. on the last page > Quantity: 78 volumes this row · 100 pages a volume > Counter: HZ-4471 > Deadline: today
My row's turn falls today. The cart goes, leaving a stack of volumes at my right hand, 1 finger taller than the monitor on the desk.
I start from the first volume. Left hand on the spine, right hand turning pages. The approval pages are old paper, brittle at the edges. One stamp to a page, a number in the footer. I count a page, keep a number — the number isn't kept on paper; it's kept in the hand.
Counting pages runs at the speed of stamping: 2.17 seconds a page. It's a number the hand keeps on its own; no thought needed.
First volume done. The footer numbers connect, from 10894401 to 10894500, no breaks in the middle. Every 10 volumes bundled, cotton tying cord; on the first volume's cover a label slip, the year 2002 on it. The bottom bundle's slip reads 2011. 78 volumes, a span of 9 years, all of it before I was hired.
In the 11th volume one page carries a straddle seal pressed across the spine, only half the circle showing. I count the teeth that show. 32 teeth to a circle; this half, 16. From the later volumes I pull 3, look at 1 page each. All 32 teeth, not 1 short of a circle.
Volume 8, page 31: the paper edge grazes the right index finger. On the pad of the finger, a white cut, slanted, half an inch long.
I bend the finger back to the light. The cut is open; inside, white. No blood.
I press it and it closes. I keep counting.
Xiao Zheng passes behind me with a stack of volumes. His row counts today too.
He says: Shen, so it cut you.
I say: How did you know.
He says: Everyone who counts paper has been cut. Paper is faster than a knife — old saying.
He says: Finger cots come from logistics, 2 mao a pair. We all wear them.
I say: No need.
He says: Your hands are fast; they'd slow them.
He walks off with the volumes.
08:00, I finish volume 9. 08:41, volume 21, page 63, the paper edge grazes the same spot again — the same cut, a little deeper. I open the finger to look: still no blood. Inside, the cut is white, dry.
I hold that page to the light. The paper edges have yellowed; on the yellow sits a layer of burr. What cut me is the burr.
I keep counting. This volume done, I go to the locker room and open drawer two. 7 bandages; I take one and press it onto the pad of the index finger. Skin-toned, the same color as the back of the hand — once it's on, you can't tell it's there. On the side of the box, a line of small print: Employee Care · standing stock. Under it, another line, an item no.: GK-04.
6 left in the drawer. I close the drawer.
09:15:02.
My hand shakes. 0.4 seconds. 2 pages turn past the one under my fingertip. I come back, part those 2 again, count them one by one. This volume done, the count is right.
The hand shake is recorded in the system. The cut from the paper is recorded on the paper. Neither of the two is recorded on paper.
What the system records is the pressure of stamping. Counting doesn't enter the system; counting goes only onto paper. What's on paper, the system doesn't record.
10:26, volume 33: the binding thread is broken, pages loose; I count them loose-leaf, half a volume slower. The year on the seal label: 2005. The broken length of thread I tuck back into the spine. No rejoining.
Master Xu passes behind my row with her watering can and glances at the volumes on my desk.
She says: Paper.
She says: Paper is good. With paper you can see.
She doesn't stop; the can sways once in her hand, the water doesn't slosh out.
In the morning I finish 54 volumes, 5,400 pages. Counting doesn't go into the day-close; the day-close records stamping only.
11:52, the canteen opens. Meat is lion's-head meatballs and Spanish mackerel; vegetables are winter melon and Indian lettuce. I take winter melon and Indian lettuce, 1 scoop of rice.
The woman at the serving line ladles out a scoop of winter melon, lifts her eyelids once, and they drop back to the ladle. 20 years serving, she doesn't look at people; she looks at the ladle.
Lao Ge carries his tray over and sits. 2 dishes today.
He looks at my right index finger.
He says: You put one on.
I say: Got cut.
He says: Paper cuts don't bleed. First one?
I say: I can't say.
He says: Can't say means never happened.
He says: In our day, counting paper — a row done, the hands were lined with marks. Bleeding was rare.
I say: Why.
He says: No idea. Old sayings handle the saying, not the why.
He says: Seals used to land on paper, nothing but. No white marks on your hands, you never did the work.
I say: How many did yours have.
He opens his right hand, turns it over and back, gives it a read.
He says: Gone long since. The skin has been swapped out a few rounds.
He says: Yours will be gone soon enough too.
He drinks his soup. He says: All the same, go draw a pair of finger cots.
I say: Counting's done today. No point.
He says: True.
He says: Isn't there a bandage box in your drawer.
I say: How do you know.
He says: Everyone has one. Use it and you'll see — it fills itself back up.
I say: Who puts them in.
He says: Nobody puts them in. Same with the spare ink. It fills itself.
I say: Nobody puts them in, so where do they come from.
He says: The warehouse, maybe. Nobody has ever asked.
He finishes the food on his tray, leaves a small half of the rice.
I set my tray on the belt. At the tray return, the woman in the blue jacket changes a bin. She says: Nothing left on your tray. I say: Mm. She says: It's like that. She pushes the bin away.
13:10, back at Zone C. Passing the Zone B passage: the clock there still 2 minutes slow, the same 3 scratches in its glass. Afternoon, stamping first. First, a formulary adjustment for a community health station, human impact Grade 3, 106 names in the annex. I count 106. Stamp. Second, hearing-aid fitting subsidies, 210 names in the annex. Third, an unemployment benefit review, human impact Grade 2 — no stamp, to the execution tier.
Names counted this afternoon: 106, 210. I don't keep totals. I count one, and it's one.
14:30, past 2,000 items stamped, I go back to the remaining volumes. A few volumes in, the bandage on the right index finger curls at the edge. Where it curls is the cut. I press through the bandage once: no pain. The cut gives the fingertip nothing to feel.
I peel the curled bandage off. Going in, I expected it to stick to the wound. It doesn't — it comes away at one touch, slick on the underside, as if it had been sitting on a sheet of glass. The underside is perfectly clean; nothing has seeped, nothing has stuck.
The cut on the pad has closed. A white line, paler than the skin around it, flat under the nail.
Cut open at 08:00. At 14:30, grown shut.
I draw the page that cut me halfway out of its volume and run the pad along the paper edge once more. The edge is still burred. The pad collects nothing.
I fold the peeled bandage in half and drop it in the wastebasket. I don't put on another.
Tomorrow morning I'll put a fresh one on. The hand has a place for it now; bare feels wrong.
15:02, Xiao Zheng passes behind me hugging a bundle of spare tying cords.
He says: Our row is done counting.
I say: Anything missing.
He says: 1 page. From 2008. It's gone to supplementary registration.
He says: You.
I say: Won't know until I'm done.
He says: You took that thing off your hand?
I say: Grown shut.
He looks at my fingertip, stands 2 seconds, says: Quick.
He walks off with the cords.
15:37, up for water. 40 steps there and back. The water sits at my right hand. Not one sip.
16:02, the remaining volumes are counted. 78 volumes, 7,800 pages, not 1 page short. The last volume's final page has a counter field; I sign the employee no., no date. Lao Zhou's Rule 10: no dates on paper.
I stack the volumes back where the cart stands. The cart comes at 16:10 and collects them. The escort signs the form, tears off a copy, presses it onto my desk.
> Backlog count · recovery receipt (third copy) > Volumes: 78 Pages: 7,800 > Missing pages: 0 > Counter: HZ-4471 (employee no. signed on the last page, no date) > Recovered: 16:10 > Escort: (employee no. 0502)
16:20, no new cc at the top right of the desk. The file went in on day 6. Today is day 17. The conclusion field still isn't showing.
The head-of-queue item pinned at the top, unmoving. I've looked at it twice today.
16:44, day-close.
> Reviewer: HZ-4471 > Stamps today: 3,150 > Net time: 1 hr 54 min > Average: 2.17 sec/item > Errors: 0 > Note: backlog count 78 volumes / 7,800 pages, no missing pages
I run the numbers. Stamping net time today, 1 hour 54 minutes; 3,150 items times 2.17 seconds comes to 1 hour 53 minutes 55 seconds. The sheet rounds. 5 seconds off. The 5 seconds are in the sheet, not in my hand.
Past the standings screen. First line, not me. Day 12.
16:51, seal return. I put the seal back in drawer three and, hand already moving, open drawer two.
7 bandages.
I took 1 this morning, peeled it off this afternoon into the Zone C wastebasket. Now the box holds 7. The box is the box it always was; the crease on the lid is still there.
I close the locker, stand 3 seconds, open it again.
7.
I page back through this month's history. The page won't go past this month. 2 draw entries this month: 1 today, 1 on November 4. Drawn 1, restocked 1, handler blank.
On November 4 I never opened this drawer. That was the first day the red light came on.
On the terminal I pull up the draw-and-restock page.
> Employee Care · supply draw and restock record (locker C-4471-02 · excerpt) > Item: bandages (skin tone · waterproof) > Drawn today: 1 (08:46) > Restocked today: 1 (14:07) > On hand: 7 > Handler: (blank) > Restock method: automatic > Note: restock triggered when stock falls below 7; no request required > > Item: spare ink (black · 60ml) > Drawn today: 0 > On hand: 2 > Restock method: automatic > Note: same as above
Today's entry: the draw is logged at 08:46. I opened the drawer at 8:46. That entry is right. The restock entry is logged at 14:07 — what I can match is what I was doing; what I can't match is whose hand.
14:07. I was stamping, past item 1,500 for the afternoon, the cut on my fingertip grown shut half an hour before. It came in without a sound; the locker door was never opened.
I can't pull a handler record for the restock step. The page has no such field.
17:12, the commuter car pulls in, empty. The arrival time on the car's screen is exact to the minute. When the minute jumps, the full minute I've been counting in my head runs out at the same time. The car passes City Hall; the red characters on the sign sweep across the glass.
Home. Hands first. Water on the fingertip; the cut doesn't hurt; the water is cold. The new card comes off onto the desk, the pressure mark still across the lower half of the photo. The inkstone unwashed. The pothos watered. Both leaves; the whitened one still white.
Under the lamp I look at the right index finger. The cut is gone. The white line has faded too; what's left is a shiny mark, slanted, half an inch. Scraped open at 08:00; now it's 20:00. 12 hours.
No blood on the paper. On the paper there is only the footer no.
I take out the slip of paper for a look. 10 lines on the front, 2 on the back. Today I add nothing.
I move the inkstone under the lamp and grind 20 turns. As the ink comes loose, the shiny mark on my fingertip picks up a trace of it; I rub it off. The ink in the well of the inkstone hasn't dried in 11 years. Ground loose or not, there's a hair of brightness between the two.
I lay out a sheet of letter paper. From the batch at home, bought 20 years ago, the last 3 sheets left. The salutation line, blank.
The pen is that old wolf-hair brush. Before the first stroke, I look once more at the shiny mark on the pad of my finger.
The first line I write is 7 characters: To the one who can see me.
Under it I write 5 lines. On the 3rd line the pen halts on the paper and the ink blooms into a dot. I let the dot dry, then keep writing.
Done, I blow it dry, fold it twice, and slip it into the envelope. On the envelope, for recipient I write: Cheng Xu. For address: Old Post Office Building, 3rd floor, 307.
I don't write a date on the letter.
The envelope goes on the desk, under the inkstone.
Tomorrow is day 18. First in the queue, still 77413.