February 27. February 28. March 1. Over three days I moved Kang Min-seok's circle, one seat a day.
On the 27th I moved the seat in front of him — a man who always kept a radio playing low. On the 28th, the one at the end of his row — the man Min-seok stepped out to smoke with. On March 1, the last of them, the new hire behind him — someone less than half a year in.
Over the three days the lines in the body narrowed toward Min-seok's number one a day, and one a day I chose the furthest line and moved it into the sending column. The moved line closed that day, and every closed seat was one he saw daily. The arithmetic of choosing the furthest line held the same across all three days, and so did the way a face came trailing onto the answer it gave. The hand that kept the radio, the face shared over cigarettes, the seat of the half-year hire became, each in its turn, the answer to the sum.
Each of the three mornings I did the same thing. Turn on the terminal, read the body's lines top to bottom, mark the line furthest from Min-seok's number, copy that number into the sending column. The hand that had trembled four days back, the first time it reached the sending column, stopped trembling over those three days. A hand that no longer trembles is a hand grown used to the work. Closing one person a day had become the morning's routine, and a thing gone routine no longer made the hand shake.
Over the three days Min-seok's Treasury emptied a seat a day. The first day, of the seat in front, he said, a perfectly fine man; the second day, of his row-mate, he said less. The third day, of the seat behind him, his first words were not a perfectly fine man. They were: only around me does it keep emptying.
He was starting to see it — his own seat left while the ring around it emptied. He was starting to be unable to call his own remaining, while the ring emptied, luck. Luck would have emptied evenly. If only his surroundings kept emptying, it was not luck but something holding him at the center and wiping the ring away. He did not know the name of that something; he only felt that he stood at the center.
At lunch on the third day I watched Min-seok count the empty desks, pointing at each with a finger. Front, side, across, the row, behind. After five seats his finger stopped on his own. In that picture — five seats empty, one left — he was feeling out with his finger what kind of seat the one that remained was. That the seat left at the center might be not the lucky seat but the last one, he was tracing with his fingertip.
To his only around me does it keep emptying I gave no answer. To answer I would have had to tell him that his surroundings emptied in order to leave him at the center, and whose hand it was that had emptied his ring. His surroundings emptying was no accident. His remaining while they emptied was no accident either. Both were one hand's single reckoning, and that hand stood at his side, looking at the empty seats with him.
March 2. Eight in the morning. I sat down at my desk.
One line stood in the body.
I read its last two digits. Min-seok's number. After three days of moving all of his circle, the one line left in the body was this. There was no circle left to move. I could not choose the furthest line. When one line is all the body holds, the furthest line is that one — and that one was Min-seok.
Bring my hand to the sending column, and his number is written there and the seat closes. Keep the hand from it, and the vertical line reaches the one line no longer moved, and his seat closes. Move it, my hand closes it; leave it, the arithmetic does. The seat I had put off through three days of emptying the circle sat alone in the body today.
The winter I first edited a line of a roster, I edited an unknown line at an unknown firm. Over these three days I had moved Min-seok's circle — seats whose faces I knew but whose names I did not. The one line left in the body today was a seat whose face and name I had known ten years. The distance to the sending column was no longer than three days ago, yet the seat at the end of it stood nearer than three days ago. The path the hand took was the same; only the person closed at its end came nearer by the day.
In the morning I went up to Treasury. Only Min-seok's seat held a person. Side, front, across, the row — all empty, and among the empty desks he sat alone. He raised a hand when he saw me, slower than a few days before. Now I'm the only one left in the section, he said. I'm next, he said.
You are next — I had read it in the body and carried it here; he read it in the empty desks. He spoke the words by guess; I knew them by sight. Whether the next day he guessed and the next day I had seen were the same day, I could not tell him. A guess can be wrong, and it left him a day's margin; what I had seen left none. His number already stood written as a line in the body, and a written line was no guess.
That I could not give him even a day's margin weighed heavier than the three days I had kept him alive. I had emptied his circle to give him three days, but those three days were also three days closing in on him. The day given and the day closing in were one day, and the count of days I saved matched the count of days that reached him.
Back at my seat I sat before the body. One line stood in it, and that one line was the seat left dead center of the circle I had emptied over three days. The sending column was empty; my hand was at the edge of the desk. Lift it, and it was him; rest it there, and it was him. Three days I had emptied his circle to leave him at the center, and today at the center was that one, in the body that one line. At the end of the emptying was him.
I looked at the one line with my hand at the edge of the desk. I had done nothing yet but look. Knowing that to look is also to write, for now I only looked. The one line held still while I looked, and even held still it stayed there. It was not a line that would vanish if I looked away. Whatever I did or did not do, that one line was Min-seok's number.
Over three days I had chosen the furthest line, and as long as there were lines to choose, to choose was to save. Today, with only one line to choose, choosing was no longer saving. In the place where a single line was left in the body, the hand became, for the first time, a hand that could not save. To a hand that cannot save, only closing was left, and closing ended at the same seat whether I did it or the arithmetic did. In that seat sat Min-seok.
