February 24. Eight in the morning. I sat down at the desk.
Three lines stood in the body. The first and second were as they had been yesterday; the third had been written overnight. Its last two digits were one unit below the second line's. The vertical line had come down another unit in the night. The units left before Kang Min-seok's number were one fewer than the day before.
The hour at which the body wrote a line was not fixed. Some lines came at dawn, some in the daytime. Only the interval — one line, one unit, a day — had never once broken. As long as it held, the third line would be followed by a fourth, the fourth by a fifth, and once all those lines were written, the last two digits of the final line would be Min-seok's. The body was, in effect, stepping down one notch a day toward that final line.
I looked at the sending column. It was empty. When I had come back to my desk and sat down yesterday, my hand had been one knuckle toward the sending column, and I did not remember when it had moved. Whether that hand had written anything there, or nothing, I did not remember either. That the sending column was empty now could mean I had written nothing, or it could mean that what I had written had already turned into a result and been cleared from the column. The emptiness of the sending column proved neither.
Last night I left without turning the terminal off. Before I left I saw my hand a knuckle toward the sending column, and after seeing it I did not see whether I drew the hand back or not. I went home and slept, and while I slept no one stood at the terminal in the records room, and when I came back in the morning the third line was written. That my hand's position makes no difference between a line written while I sleep and a line written while I wake — I felt I had already known it, somewhere in the folds of last night's sleep.
Nine in the morning. A personnel notice went up. The firm's headcount reduction dated February 24 was one position in Treasury.
I read the number for that one position. A Treasury number — but none of the lines of the body's vertical line. Not the first, not the second, not the third, and set at none of the even intervals of the vertical line: a number outside the line. As the third-floor clerk had closed outside the line yesterday, today one person in Treasury had closed outside the line.
That number too had a face. A man at an inner desk in Treasury, one desk over from Min-seok. The profile I would catch over Min-seok's shoulder whenever I went up to Treasury to check cash sheets. The man at the next desk Min-seok had mentioned at the pantry a few days back — him.
The third line had come down one unit overnight, and that unit had not been moved into the sending column. By as much as the unit went unmoved, the number that had to close was made good outside the line. What was made good outside the line was a position in Treasury: the man who sat one desk over from Min-seok.
The same thing had happened yesterday. Yesterday a line of the body had gone unmoved into the sending column, and that day's one position was made good by the third-floor clerk, outside the line. The day before, a line had gone unmoved, and that day's one was made good by someone else outside the line. Until yesterday the people made good outside the line had been faces I did not know; today, for the first time, it had moved into Min-seok's circle. From the moment the vertical line came down into Treasury, the one pushed outside the line was being chosen from Treasury too.
While I held the vertical line far from Min-seok, the number that had to close was being made good, one desk at a time, from the ring around him. Keeping his line from coming down meant closing the people around him one by one, starting with the man at the next desk. I was not saving him; I was closing the ring around him, one a day, in his place.
Whether my hand had done it or the firm's arithmetic had, I could not tell, as yesterday. Whether my hand had moved something into the sending column overnight and closed that one Treasury position, or the arithmetic had chosen him on its own while I did nothing — the emptiness of the sending column proved neither. Only, someone had closed, and his profile looked like Min-seok's.
In the morning I went up to Treasury. The desk beside Min-seok was empty. Min-seok was in his place, and he raised a hand to me as he had yesterday, but he did not smile as he had yesterday. The guy next to me got his notice yesterday, he said, low. A perfectly fine man, he said, and looked at the empty desk. A navy coat the man had left the day before still hung over the back of the empty chair, and no one had cleared it yet. Min-seok looked at the coat a long while, then said, they say there's no telling how many more in our section will wear thin this week, and looked down at the back of his own hand. Where he had heard the word wear thin, I did not ask. That his own job remaining came, by one reckoning, to the same thing as his neighbor's closing, he did not know; I did. As long as he kept his job, the people beside him would keep closing. I could not say that to him.
There was one more thing I could not say. That the closing of the man beside him came, by one reckoning, to the same thing as the stillness of my hand trying to save him. That trying to save him was closing the man beside him. To say it I would have had to explain the body, the vertical line, my hand trembling over the sending column — and even explained, he would not believe it. Not believing was better for him. To a man who counts his own job remaining as a relief, to tell him that the relief was the price of the man beside him would not be saving him.
I came back to my desk and looked at the body again. Below the third line, the fourth stood empty. If the fourth line came down another unit in the night and was written, then the one position closing outside the line tomorrow morning would be another part of Min-seok's ring — whoever sat in front of him, whoever sat behind him, or someone from his section.
I counted the desks that ringed him. The desk beside, the desk in front, the desk behind, the people of his section — I counted them on my fingers and counted once more. The desks around him came to no more than the units of the vertical line still left before Min-seok's number. Before the vertical line reached him, everyone around him would close first.
While the people around him closed one by one, Min-seok would stay in his place. And while he stayed, he would count himself lucky; watching the man beside him, the man in front, the man behind all close, he would count his own job remaining as a relief. The more he counted it a relief, the emptier his ring would grow. The relief was a relief only until the ring stood wholly empty.
On the day the vertical line reached Min-seok, there would be no one left around him to close. That day, the number that had to close could only be made good by his own position. The blocking had an end, and the end was him.
