March 7. For seven days I did not look, and today I looked.
At ten past nine I wrote down again what I decided seven days ago.
On the evening of the twenty-fourth of February that number grew while I was not looking. I knew it had grown after I looked. Knowing after looking cannot count the while I am not looking.
To count the while I am not looking there has to be a while I am not looking.
On the morning of the twenty-ninth I wrote the sixth box down and shut it. For seven days I did not open that box alone. I opened the others every day.
This room's counting has been looking and writing. Deciding not to look is the first time it has entered the counting.
At twenty past nine I opened the box.
Two hundred and eleven.
On the morning of the twenty-ninth it was a hundred and sixty-three.
Forty-eight in seven days.
From twenty to ten until eleven I set it against the eight days before.
From the twenty-first of February to the twenty-ninth I looked and wrote every day. Over those eight days it grew by forty-nine.
Forty-nine in eight days and forty-eight in seven.
The daily figure is the same.
While I looked and while I did not look it grew at the same rate.
There are three ways of reading that sameness. I wrote all three down.
One is that it grows as it grew whether I look or not. Then the growth in July while I looked at those letters is a coincidence.
One is that it was being counted while I was not looking. Then what counts is not me, and I only read.
One is that the seven days' worth was assigned at the moment I opened it this morning. Then forty-eight is not seven days' worth but today's.
None of the three disagrees with this number. This box holds one number only, so there is nowhere in it to tell the three apart.
From eleven to twelve I looked for a way to tell the third apart.
The sixth box has no date. It has one number.
The query record has dates and times.
I ran off the seven days' query record. Seventy-six outside rows.
Forty-eight and seventy-six do not agree.
They did not agree on the fifteenth of February either. That day the rows were eleven and the number thirty-nine. The number was larger than the rows.
Today the rows are seventy-six and the number forty-eight. The rows are larger than the number.
The relation of the two numbers inverted within twenty days. Which day it inverted cannot be got from the two records, because the sixth box writes no date.
From half past twelve to one I counted the seven days one by one.
They are uneven. The first has twenty-three and the third has two.
The first is a Wednesday and the third a Friday. The days of the week do not tell it either.
The sixth box does not write a daily figure, so there is nothing to set that unevenness against. It gives the seven days as one lump.
At ten past one I counted what had come into this room over the seven days.
Three.
One is the reply confirming the recorder amendment. It says the reduction from six to three has been received. Four months' work is one line on a head office form.
One is the receipt of the physical verification. All eight disposed of as agreeing. Putting the seventh in the box is inside that one line.
One is notice of the April materials plan. It says the objects for outside reading are to be increased.
I also wrote down what the seven days without opening that box were like.
My hand went first. The box is low on the screen and the hand goes before the eye. From the third day it stopped going.
It took three days to keep to what I had decided. After three days it was not keeping to it but simply not looking.
There is no box for telling a thing decided from a thing that is simply so either.
At half past one I looked at the account boxes.
Seventy-five of the seventy-six rows say outside.
One is different.
Eight letters in the Latin alphabet. The fourth of March, eleven minutes past two in the afternoon.
The guidance says outside queries are not managed by account.
On the fifteenth of February I read that and wrote that it is a box absent by decision.
A box absent by decision has one value in it.
At two I telephoned head office.
The officer said it could not be so. Outside is stamped outside for all of them by the display rule, he said.
I read him the eight characters.
It was quiet a moment.
He said he would check and reply.
From three to four I looked at where to write the eight characters.
They are on the printout of the query record. The printout is overwritten in three days.
This room's register has no box for who made an outside query. On the fifteenth of February I looked and wrote that there is none.
There being none, I wrote it in the margin of the log.
There are two things written in the margin this month. One is why I struck the fifth bundle and one is today's eight characters.
A margin is not a box. The same kind of thing has been written twice somewhere that is not a box.
Written twice, the place of the third is settled. A place that is settled is what a box is.
At ten past four I opened the right-hand material.
Two hundred and eighty-four pages. The date of the added page is 5 April 98.
My log stands at its two hundred and eighty-fourth page today.
At half past four I opened the box.
Seven. Twelve days since I put the seventh in.
I counted the impressions inside the note's back cover. Six.
No increase in twelve days. In July it took a hundred and seven days, so twelve counts nothing.
At five I looked at the sixth box again.
Two hundred and sixteen. This morning it was two hundred and eleven.
Five in a day. How many of them belong to the moment I opened it I do not know.
At twenty past five the reply came.
The eight characters are not a head office account format, he said. Not head office, not the third floor, and matching no account format anywhere in the company.
Whose is it, I asked.
He does not know, he said.
I heard head office say it does not know today.
Two things were written not known in this room this month, and I wrote both.
The third came from outside today.