February 24. Eight a.m. I sat down at the desk.
There were three lines in the body field. The first and second lines were as they had been yesterday, and the third line had been written overnight. The last two digits of the third line were one unit below the second. The vertical line had come down one unit last night too. The units remaining to Min-seok's number were one fewer than yesterday.
The hour at which the body field wrote a line was not fixed. Some lines were written at dawn and some during the day. Only the interval — one line, one unit, a day — had never once erred. As long as the interval did not err, after the third line would come the fourth, and after the fourth the fifth, and once those lines were all written, the last two digits of the final line would be the last two digits of Min-seok's. The body field was, in effect, coming down one notch a day toward that final line.
I looked at the sender field. It was empty. When I had come back to my seat and sat down yesterday, my hand had been one knuckle toward the sender field, and I did not remember when it had moved. Whether that hand had written anything in the sender field, or not, I did not remember either. That the sender field was empty now could mean I had written nothing, or it could mean that what had been written had already become a result and been cleared from the field. The emptiness of the sender field proved neither.
Last night I had left my seat without turning off the terminal. Before leaving I had seen my hand a knuckle toward the sender field, and after seeing it I had not seen whether I lifted the hand or not. I went home and slept, and while I slept no one was at the terminal in the archive, and when I came back in the morning the third line had been written. That my hand's position does not change between a line written while I sleep and a line written while I wake — I felt I had already known it, in some fold of sleep yesterday.
Nine a.m. A personnel notice came up. The firm's headcount reduction for February 24 was one Treasury seat.
I read the number of that one seat. It was a Treasury number, but it was none of the lines of the body field's vertical line. Not the first, not the second, not the third, and it lay at none of the vertical line's even intervals — a seat outside the line. As the third-floor clerk had closed outside the line yesterday, today one Treasury person had closed outside the line.
That number too had a face. An inner seat in Treasury, the one who sat one seat over from Min-seok. The profile I would see over Min-seok's shoulder when I went up to Treasury to check cash sheets. The next seat Min-seok had spoken of at the pantry a few days ago — that next seat.
The third line had come down one unit overnight, and that one unit had not been moved into the sender field. By as much as the one unit not moved, the number that had to close was filled outside the line. The seat filled outside the line was a Treasury seat, and the Treasury seat was one over from Min-seok's.
Yesterday the same thing had happened. Yesterday one line of the body field had not been moved into the sender field, and that day's one seat had been filled by the third-floor clerk outside the line. The day before, one line had not been moved, and that day's seat had been filled by another seat outside the line. Until yesterday the seat filled outside the line had been a seat I did not know, and today, for the first time, that seat had moved into Min-seok's circle. From the moment the vertical line came down into Treasury, the seat 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 filled, one seat at a time, from around Min-seok. Keeping his line from coming down was closing the people around him one at a time, starting with the next seat. I was not saving him; I was closing the seats around him, one a day, in his place.
Whether my hand had done it or the firm's arithmetic had done it, I could not tell, as yesterday. Whether my hand had moved something into the sender field overnight to close that one Treasury seat, or the arithmetic had chosen the seat on its own while I did nothing — the emptiness of the sender field proved neither. Only there was a closed seat, and on the closed seat there was a profile that resembled the profile beside Min-seok.
In the morning I went up to Treasury. The seat next to Min-seok was empty. Min-seok was in his place, and he raised a hand to me as yesterday, but did not smile as yesterday. The next seat had gotten its notice yesterday, he said in a low voice. A perfectly fine man, he said, and looked at the empty seat. A navy coat the next-seat man had left yesterday still hung over the back of the empty chair, and no one had yet cleared it. Min-seok looked at the coat a long while and then said, they say no one knows 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 seat remaining was, by one reckoning, the same as the next seat closing, he did not know, and I did.
His seat remaining, the seat next to him would keep closing. I could not say that to him.
There was one more thing I could not say. That his next seat's closing was, by one reckoning, the same as the stillness of my hand trying to save him. That trying to save him was closing the seat next to him. To say it I would have had to explain the body field, the vertical line, the hand that had trembled over the sender field, and even explained, he would not believe it. Not believing was better for him. To a man who counts his own seat remaining as a relief, telling him that the relief is the price of the next seat was not saving him.
I came back to my seat and looked at the body field again. Below the third line, the fourth line was empty. If the fourth line came down another unit overnight and was written, then the one seat closing outside the line tomorrow morning would be another part of Min-seok's circle. His seat in front, his seat behind, or someone of his section.
I counted how many seats surrounded him. The next seat, the seat in front, the seat behind, the people of his section — I counted on my fingers and counted once more. The number of seats around him was not more than the number of units of the vertical line remaining to Min-seok's number. Before the vertical line reached him, the seats around him would all close first.
While the seats around him closed one at a time, Min-seok would remain in his place. While he remained, he would think himself lucky, and watching the next seat, the front seat, the back seat close, he would count his own seat remaining as a relief. By as much as he counted it a relief, his circle would empty. The relief was a relief only until the circle was all empty.
On the day the vertical line reached Min-seok, there would be no seat left to close around him. That day, the number that had to close could only be filled by his seat. The blocking had an end, and the end was him.
