December 31. I came in the morning and I stay through the night.
The procedure came on the twenty-seventh of December.
It has twenty-four items. Seventeen to be done before midnight, one at midnight, six after midnight.
When I first read the midnight item I read it once more. It is one word.
Wait.
It is the first time a box for the night has come into the work of this room. For twelve months the form has had only boxes for the day. Doing nothing at night has entered a box, and that is my work today.
From ten until twelve I went through the seventeen before midnight in order.
Two copies to be taken, and the date fields counted entire one last time, and a table made of whether the patch is applied to the six programs. The clocks of the three machines to be set. The operational machine and the query machine are set. The test machine is not in the procedure.
There is one machine in this room that is not in the procedure.
At one I telephoned head office and asked what to do with the test machine. The person said if it is not in the procedure to leave it. Left, that machine does not roll over tonight. It did so six months ago.
There is one machine that rolled over in advance, and that machine has no tonight.
From two until four I counted the date fields entire.
One thousand four hundred and twelve. In August I counted one thousand three hundred and eighty-four and counted again the next day and it had grown. I have counted many times since, and each time it grew, the field that had grown was one I opened yesterday.
Counted today it is one thousand four hundred and twelve and the same as yesterday's count.
There is a box for writing that a thing is the same. In the discrepancy box one writes that there is none. Writing it, I did not write that this is a first in four months. There is no box for whether a thing is a first.
Unapplied is nil.
For eight months there was always something to correct. Corrected, it grew, and what had grown I corrected again. Today there is nothing to correct.
At five the third floor emptied. At half past five the sound of people on the stairs stopped.
At six the heating went off.
At ten past six the guard came down, went round as far as the basement and back up. He said one in funds, one in general affairs, one in the computer room. He said three.
At half past six the telephone rang once. Funds. He asked how the date was showing on the screen. I said it was still the thirty-first. He laughed and hung up.
From seven until nine I did the remaining seven before midnight.
I made the table of the six programs and verified the two copies and pulled the query history of the query machine.
There are four of today's in the query history. One in the morning, two in the day, one at half past six. The one at half past six I did not make. I took the call from funds and looked at the screen, and that is all. Looking has never been stamped as a query.
At ten past nine I opened the copy.
For eight months the copy has been a day ahead. If there is a page for today, its date will be tomorrow's.
There was a page for today. It is the two hundred and thirty-second.
In the date box is the first of January, and the year is two digits, double zero. The figure box is empty.
I looked at where that page stands in the list.
It was at the top.
Since October the first line of the inverted list has been my record. I wrote then that in six months I had taken the top box for the first time. Tonight the copy has stood in front of it.
For eight months the copy has been the set that wrote what I did not write. It was behind me.
At half past nine I took out the box.
For a fortnight the fifth bundle has not grown past a hundred and seventy-seven pages. One page came on the sixteenth and none since.
I have looked at that one page many times in the fortnight. The date is the sixteenth of December and there is double zero in the year box.
Read as two thousand, it is a day not yet come. The sixteenth passed a fortnight ago and the sixteenth of two thousand is three hundred and fifty days off. Read as nineteen hundred, it is a year in which this room did not exist.
Read either way it is not today. And that page came a fortnight ago.
At twenty past ten I opened the separate volume.
It is run apart for the test machine. Since October it is entered by that machine's date. Today the separate volume's date is the thirty-first of December, year double zero.
Tomorrow the separate volume goes over to the first of January, year double zero. That machine lives year double zero twice. Once from October until today and once from tomorrow.
There is no box in the separate volume for a year lived twice. There is one year box.
At half past ten I opened the right-hand material.
It was two hundred and twenty-four pages. The page added is dated the fourth of February 98.
What happened in this company in February 98 is in the paper register. In that log there is what was copied that month and what was counted.
On the page for the fourth of February there was one sentence outside the boxes.
The room is cold and there is no one here.
At eleven I thought of October.
In October I was in this room until ten at night. I meant to roll the test machine back and it took half a day and so it went. That day was not ordered. I switched it on and I meant to roll it back and I did not.
Today is an order. A circular came and my name was in the name box.
In August I wrote, is it different when there is an order. Then I asked it of correcting. Four months later I ask the same of staying.
There is one place it differs. In October I was trying to go back, and today not going back is the work.
Having written wait, there was nothing left to do.
From ten past eleven until ten to twelve I sat.
Three machines are on and three screens show a date. The operational machine and the query machine read the thirty-first of December 99. The test machine reads the thirty-first of December, year double zero.
There are two years in one room. I wrote that in November, and then I wrote it because two machines put out two years' worth of work. Today there is no work.
With no work the two years simply stand side by side.
At half past eleven I looked at the window. People are passing in the street. For many months the papers have written about this night. They said the banks would stop and the telephones would go and the water would not run. The company sent down two circulars with those articles pasted to them.
What I have seen in this room in eight months is not that. Nothing has stopped. It has grown.
I received a procedure for the stopping side and went through the twenty-four in order and seventeen are done. There is no box in the procedure for the growing side.
At twenty to twelve I closed the procedure. Closing it I read the six after midnight once more. Switch the machines on in order, query the date and write it down, compare the copies, report to head office.
All six are writing. Writing, for eight months, has been increasing.
At ten to twelve I opened the log.
I wrote one line on today's page.
My hands are cold and the writing shakes.
Having written it I stopped my hand.
I read that sentence on the second of November. Of the seventeen sentences outside the boxes in the 1997 archive log, it is the first.
The sentences outside the boxes in my log have become ten.