February 27. February 28. March 1. Over three days I moved 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 on low. On the 28th I moved the seat at the end of his row. The man Min-seok went out to smoke with. On March 1 I moved the last seat, the new hire behind him — someone less than half a year in.
Over three days the lines of the body field narrowed toward Min-seok's number one a day, and one a day I chose the furthest line and moved it into the sender field. The moved line closed that day, and every closed seat was one Min-seok saw every day. The arithmetic of choosing the furthest line was the same across the three days, and so was the way a face settled onto the answer the arithmetic gave. The hand that kept the radio, the face shared over cigarettes, the seat of the half-year hire became, in turn, the answer to the sum.
Over three days I did the same thing every morning. Turn on the terminal, read the lines of the body field top to bottom, mark the furthest line from Min-seok's number, copy that number into the sender field. The hand that had trembled four days ago when it first reached the sender field stopped trembling over those three days. A hand that does not tremble is a hand grown used to it. Closing a person a day had become the morning's routine, and a thing made routine no longer made the hand tremble.
Over three days Min-seok's section emptied one seat a day. The first day he called the front seat a perfectly fine man; the second day, over the row-mate, he said less. The third day, over the seat behind him, his first words were not "a perfectly fine man." They were: only around me keeps emptying.
He began to see his own seat remaining while the circle emptied. He began to be unable to call his remaining, while the circle emptied, luck. If it were luck, it would empty evenly. If only his surroundings kept emptying, then it was not luck but something keeping him at the center and erasing the circle around him. He did not know the name of that something; he only felt that he was at the center.
At lunchtime 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 pointing at five seats he stopped his finger on his own. In the picture of five seats emptied and one remaining, he was feeling out, with his finger, what kind of seat the one remaining was. That the seat left at the center might be not the lucky seat but the last seat — he was tracing it with his fingertip.
To his saying only around me keeps emptying, I gave no answer. To answer, I would have had to say that the reason his surroundings emptied was to leave him at the center, and whose hand it was that had emptied his circle. His surroundings emptying was no accident. His remaining while his surroundings emptied was no accident either. Both were one hand's one reckoning, and that hand stood beside him, looking at the empty seats together.
March 2. Eight a.m. I sat down at the desk.
There was one line in the body field.
I read the last two digits of the one line. It was Min-seok's number. After three days of moving all of his circle, the line left in the body field was that one. There was no circle left to move. I could not choose the furthest line. When there is only one line in the body field, the furthest line is that one, and that one was Min-seok.
Bring my hand to the sender field, and Min-seok's number is written there and the seat closes. Keep the hand off the sender field, and the vertical line reaches the one line no longer moved, and Min-seok's seat closes. Move it, and my hand closes it; do not move it, and the arithmetic closes it. The seat I had postponed over three days of emptying the circle sat alone in the body field today.
When I first edited a line of a roster last winter, I edited an unknown line of an unknown firm. Over three days I moved Min-seok's circle — seats whose faces I knew but whose names I did not. The one line left in the body field today was a seat whose face and name I had known for ten years. The distance to the sender field was no farther than three days ago, yet the seat at the end of that distance was nearer than three days ago. The path the hand took was the same; only the person closed at the end of that path drew nearer each day.
In the morning I went up to Treasury. Only Min-seok's seat had a person in it. The side, the front, the across, the row were all empty, and among the empty desks Min-seok sat alone. He raised a hand to me. The raising was slower than a few days ago. Now I'm the only one left in our section, he said. I'm next, he said.
The words you are next I had read in the body field and come from, and he read them in the empty desks. He said the same words by guess, and 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, so it left him a day's margin; what I had seen had no margin. His number was already written as a line in the body field, and a written line was not a guess.
I came back to my seat and sat before the body field. There was one line in the body field, and that one line was the seat left at the center of the circle I had emptied over three days. The sender field was empty, and my hand was at the edge of the desk. Lift it, and it was him; place it, and it was him. Over three days I had emptied his circle to leave him at the center, and today at the center sat that one, and in the body field 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 looking too is a writing, for now I only looked. The one line in the body field was still while I looked, and even while still it was there. It was not a line that vanished if I did not look. 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 while there were lines to choose, choosing was saving. Today, with only one line to choose, choosing was no longer saving. In the place where one line was left in the body field, the hand became, for the first time, a hand that could not save. The only thing left to a hand that cannot save was closing, and closing ended at the same seat whether I did it or the arithmetic did. In that seat sat Min-seok.
