March 5. Eight a.m. I sat down at the desk.
The one line from yesterday was still in the body field. My number in the recipient field, the sender field empty. Yesterday I had not written an answer in the sender field, and the vertical line had reached the place of the unwritten answer. The vertical line had reached my line last night. A line reached was a line not moved, and when the vertical line reaches a line not moved, that number comes up on the nine o'clock notice.
One hour remained until nine. For that hour I would keep the sender field empty. Keep it empty and the arithmetic closes my line. Since yesterday the hand that meant to stop it had closed Min-seok, today I would keep empty the hand that had decided not to stop. Knowing that a hand that does not stop also closes, I chose to close by an empty hand rather than by a blocking hand. On the empty hand, at least, no one else's number was written.
Between closing by a blocking hand and closing by an empty hand, the result of closing was no different. By either hand my line closed today. Only, the blocking hand had closed one more person before it closed, and the empty hand had not. Between two hands with the same result, the one thing I could choose was whether to close one more person before closing. That was the one thing the arithmetic did not ask, the one thing I could decide to the last.
For that hour I finished the fifth bundle. As the logs of the four bundles had, the fifth bundle too had to end with the writer's number set in the recipient field of its last page. The surveyor's bundle ended with his depth set in the last sounding of the pit; the lighthouse keeper's, with his date set in the last cell of the tide table; the librarian's, with her name set in the last syllable of a broken sentence; the telegrapher's, with his number set in the blank recipient field of a severed sentence. The fifth bundle would end with my number set in the last line of the ledger.
There were things to set down for whoever opened the next bundle. That the body is not inside the terminal but a dictation from elsewhere. That writing an answer in the sender field makes the body field's line a result. That moving and not-moving both end at the same seat. That emptying a circle to keep the center leaves the emptying hand at the center. And that when your own number comes to the recipient field, it becomes, to the next person, a blank recipient field. I had thought setting it down might keep the next person from feeling their way from the start as I had, but I too, having read all four bundles, had felt my way from the start; so I set down also that setting it down does not undo the feeling-out. Setting it down was not undoing the feeling-out but leaving a place to feel out.
While I wrote, behind my back the hands of the two assistants turned the rosters. The two who had survived until the day before yesterday had survived today too. Because I had decided not to empty my circle, those two were in their seats again today, and those two did not know why they were in their seats today. As Min-seok did not know why his circle emptied, the two assistants did not know why theirs did not. The only one who knew was the hand that empties and the hand that does not — that one hand — and that hand closed today.
Min-seok closed after his circle emptied, and I closed without emptying mine. If he was left alone at the center and closed, I closed with my circle left around me. The difference was there, but that difference did not save him. My leaving my circle only saved the two assistants; it did not reach the Min-seok closed yesterday. As saving and closing had always been one hand, so the saving and the not-saving were one hand too.
Nine a.m. A personnel notice came up. The firm's headcount reduction for March 5: one archive seat. It was my number.
My line in the body field became a result. The sender field was empty, but the emptied sender field too was the answer of my hand, decided over an hour to keep empty. To have decided not to write an answer was also an answer, and that answer was the arithmetic written. My line closed.
What it is to be closed I had not known, watching the seats close over three days. A closed seat became an empty desk, the empty desk was cleared, and the cleared seat was as clean as one no one had ever sat at. What was visible from outside the closing seat reached that far. What happens inside the closing seat could be known only by sitting in the closing seat.
My last two digits dimmed first. The last two digits of the hand that wrote numbers into the memo pad, the last two digits of the hand that wrote answers into the sender field, faded one digit at a time from the line in the body field. The dimming of the number was one with the dimming of the hand that held it. I had once written that when the form of the hand is the same, the line between the hand being the same and being a different hand disappears. Now, as the hand dimmed, the line between the dimming hand and the number it had written disappeared too. The one who writes and the one who is written dimmed, in one seat, into one number.
As the surveyor read his depth in the last sounding, as the lighthouse keeper read his date in the last tide, I too was reading my number in the last line. In the place where four people had each read their own seat at the end of their bundle, I had come fifth. What they read was a depth, a date, a syllable, a number, only; the reading was the same act. The seat where the one who reads to the end is read to the end — five hands had sat there in turn, and I was the fifth.
While it dimmed I was writing the last line of the fifth bundle. I meant to set my number in the recipient field and close the line. Before the last digit could be written, the last digit of the writing hand dimmed first. The place I meant to write and the place that dimmed were the same last digit.
The last line of the fifth bundle stopped with its last digit left empty. The severed place was a severance, and the severance was a signature. In the recipient field my number remained, its last digit dimmed. The dimmed digit was not blank, and not fully written. When the one who next opens this bundle reads that digit, the dimmed digit will become, to them, a blank recipient field. The instant they read their own number into that empty digit, the severed line of the fifth bundle will become their first line.
From the one who reads to the one who moves, from the one who moves to the one who answers, from the one who answers to the one who empties the circle, from the one who empties the circle to the one left at the center, from the one left at the center to the one who is written — at the end of the changes I was being fully written. In the fully written place only the last digit remained, dimmed, waiting for the next recipient.
We were watching a little further. And now, one of us was being fully written. In the fully written place a blank digit remained for the next one person.
