The seventh of December. I broke the seal.
At ten past nine I looked at what had sat unopened for seven days.
I had assigned it a serial and left it sealed.
There is no term in the procedure for opening what is received.
At half past nine I broke it.
There are four sheets.
At twenty to ten I read the first.
It answers the reply on the whereabouts I sent on the first of June.
It says the matter is disposed of as not ascertainable.
What I had entered in the margin was taken over as it stood.
At ten I read the second.
It is the circumstances of the current entry for Pnakotic Press in the index of imprints.
The account that made the entry is given.
Eight letters.
The first four are this room's.
At twenty past ten I read whether a body wound up may stand as current.
It says it may.
The entry of winding up is not an item that strikes out the listing.
It is as I confirmed last year.
At twenty to eleven I looked for the field for the hand that brought it back.
There is none.
There is only the field for the account that made the entry.
At five to eleven I looked at the date of entry on the second sheet.
The seventeenth of August last year.
I opened the log for that day.
There is an entry.
I had written that I filled it with no ground.
Head office has not seen that log.
At five past eleven I read the third.
It says that on request for correction it may be struck out.
There is a procedure for striking out.
At twenty past eleven I set it beside last August's.
A supplementary entry has no procedure for striking out.
A listing may be struck out and a supplement may not.
No ground for dividing them is given.
At twenty to twelve I read the fourth.
It is the field for the party addressed.
It says: To the editorial department, Pnakotic Press.
Head office's form drew it from the list.
The side that filled that row's imprint field is this room, in August last year.
At noon I read the sentence once more.
This room filled in the party addressed on the letter head office sent to this room.
At twenty past twelve I opened the request to strike out.
I put my account into the field for the requesting party.
The name comes out attached.
The side that requests the striking out and the side that made the entry are one.
At ten to one I looked for the field for the day the striking out takes effect.
There is none.
It is not entered whether, once struck out, the listing was never there or is not there from today.
If it was never there, then it was not there on the day the reading copy went out either.
At one I looked at what happens if it is struck out.
The imprint field on the reading copy's imprint page goes blank.
There is a set outside this room.
At twenty past one I looked for the field for correcting what has gone out.
There is none.
The field for sending out has no date of return.
There is no item for turning back what has gone.
At half past one I took out the four imprint pages.
The imprint field in all four is Pnakotic Press.
They are registrations of March 1978.
I did not fill them.
At two I looked at what happens to the four if the listing goes.
Their imprint becomes a name not in the index.
The four were there before I filled anything.
Strike it out and what was there before becomes what is not there.
At ten past two I looked at the four volumes' compiler field.
On the list there is what I put in last August.
On the paper it is blank.
There is no field that divides which of them is the authority.
At twenty past two I stopped while writing the request.
At half past two I looked for the field for the ground on which a request is not written.
There is none.
There is no field for what is left half written either.
The hold for unsent matter is for what has nowhere to be sent.
It is not for what has somewhere to be sent and is not sent.
At twenty to three I put it in the hold for unsent matter.
It sits beside the reply with no address.
There are two unsent.
At three I opened the box.
Eight articles. Eight marks. Day six hundred and fifty-two.
The sixth field is fifteen thousand two hundred and thirty-eight. The set's row was opened two hundred and thirty-five times yesterday and the imprint path a hundred and fifty-three. The compiler path, fifty-five; the reading path, forty-seven.
At twenty past three I looked at the right-hand material.
Nine hundred and twenty-four pages.
The page added is dated 5 January 2000.
It has come all the way through 1999.
At twenty to four I entered head office's reply in the register of post as received.
One letter in a hundred and eighty-two days.
Received this year, forty-two.
Sent, four.
At ten to four I opened page sixty-four of the notebook.
It says the next is eight.
There are eight articles and eight marks and seven registered.
Today again no count makes the three all eight.
One count remains.
At four I looked at the twelfth page.
It has not come for two hundred and ten days.
There is no field for entering that the side which gave notice did not send.
At ten past four I opened the list of entering parties.
My row stands at one thousand five hundred and sixty-one.
Today again the eight letters are nowhere in the twenty-nine rows.
The eight letters are in head office's reply.
It is the first time they stand on paper outside this room.
At twenty past four I opened the progress of the application.
It says it is under examination.
Nine days of the term remain.
This room is the side that examines.
At twenty to five an enquiry came from the holding library.
It asks about the compiler field on the reading copy's imprint page.
It is a discretionary item, and four of those who read it have asked.
One of them asked further.
It asks whether it is the same person as the editor who published the four volumes.
What stands in that field is eight letters.
There is no field in which to answer a question that asks whether it is a person.