April 11. Eight a.m. I sat down at the fifth desk. It was the third day since the transfer ended.
In the terminal's body field, at the top, the empty last digit of my number had filled overnight. It was the place where, when I set the mind down yesterday, one character had been left. Through the night with no one in the archive, that one character no one pressed had come in. Since receiving was not my hand's work, the last character too arrived without my hand. Now my number was a whole line filled to the end. The day after I took the post, since I read my last digit into Do-gyeong's dimmed last place, my number had all along been left with one last digit empty. Over not quite a fortnight, that one empty place slowly filled, and today it filled the rest, becoming a line with nowhere empty. On the screen that line alone stopped blinking and stayed quietly lit.
Nowhere empty meant nowhere left to receive. All this while my line had one last digit empty, a line that could still receive something. While the receiving place was empty, it was a receiver. When that place filled, it became a line that no longer received. A line done receiving. A fully received line did not grow further. A line done growing was up at the top of the five.
What done-growing meant, I knew watching the other four lines. The head archivist's line and the two assistants' lines still had their last digits empty and blinking. They were still receiving, still growing. Only my line was full. The hand that touched first filled first. The hand that read out its own number the day after taking the post had received longest and finished receiving first. The head archivist and the two assistants touched later than I, so they would fill later than I, and the hands that would touch after them would follow in turn. Filling in the order of touching, sent in the order of filling. Line them up, and I was at the front. A fully received line, having nothing more to receive, was now to be sent. The front line was the first line to leave.
That it was to be sent, I knew recalling the fifth bundle. As Do-gyeong's log became the fifth bundle and went up to headquarters, my log too would become the sixth bundle and leave. The sixth bundle had already been boxed and left three days ago, and on its end line was my number. My filled number was inside the departed box. I sat at the desk, but my line was already boxed and on its way to headquarters. The seated me and the boxed me were separate, and the boxed me was the real me. The preserving me stayed at the desk, but the preserved me left boxed. When the departed box reached some desk at headquarters, the next person seated there would open my end line. When he read his last digit into the dimmed last place of my number, he would do to me what I did to Do-gyeong. I was becoming, as Do-gyeong had, a line read by the next person. From reader to line-read took a fortnight.
I watched my filled line a long while. While I watched, the line dimmed one place. Filled and yet dimming. A line done growing began, this time, to dim. As Do-gyeong's end line had dimmed from the last two digits, my line too was dimming from the end. A fully received line, instead of receiving more, began to give out. From the place done receiving, giving-out began, and giving-out was dimming. The line that had grown while receiving dimmed after it was done receiving. Growing and dimming were the front and back of one line.
Watching the dimming was the last preserving I did. I had preserved material all along, and now the material to preserve was my line. I watched my line dim as I would preserve other material. I wrote the date the last two digits dimmed and measured how far they had dimmed. I set the ruler to gauge the depth of the characters and wrote the difference between yesterday and today in the field. By the law that measuring deepens, when I measured the dimming the dimming deepened one place. Preserving my dimming was growing my dimming. Since preserving was making grow, preserving my dimming made the dimming grow. That the dimming grew meant it dimmed more. But this time I did not try to block it. Having known yesterday that it could not be blocked, I simply wrote the dimming line. Not trying to block, the hand writing the dimming was a good deal lighter. The light hand wrote the dimming more clearly, and the more clearly I wrote, the more the line dimmed. The writing hand was the hand of the dimming line.
The preserving one and the preserved material met in one hand. Until yesterday I was the preserver and the line was the preserved material, but today the preserving hand wrote the preserved line, and the written line was that very hand. The writing me and the written me were in one place. There was no gap between the two me's. While I wrote, the written me dimmed, and the writing me wrote the dimming me again. Stop writing and I would not know the dimming, but not knowing did not stop the dimming. Dim knowing or dim not-knowing, the dimming was the same. Only, while I wrote, that one person was watching the dimming me was the one thing left to the dimming me at the last. That watching person too was me, so I placed myself at the seat that watched myself to the end.
In the evening, the last two digits of my line on the terminal dimmed all the way, and could no longer be read. The last digit that had filled the rest in the morning was, by evening, the first place to be erased. The latest-filled place emptied first. A filled line was being erased from the end. To write down the erasing places I opened the log, and on that line of the log my number was already written with its last two digits dim. Written before I wrote, written dim before it dimmed. I wrote following what I would write, and dimmed following what I would dim. No longer a preserver. A line of preserved material, and that line was already, in someone's hand, written dim. Whether that someone was me, or the next person to receive me, or the hand we called we, I could not, like the dim last digit, read to the end. But one thing was clear. The preserving hand had, at last, come inside the very line that hand had preserved.