July 15. In the morning I opened the copy first.
Page seventy-six: July 15, forty-two.
Pushed along another day. The date is today and the figure is tomorrow. Today's figure, thirty-nine, was not in the copy. The same as yesterday.
Yesterday I hung that thirty-nine outside. On the board I wrote July 15 and thirty-nine and added that it was not yet counted. Hung where I cannot amend it, I wrote, it will have nowhere to slip aside to.
At nine I ran the search. Thirty-nine.
Right. The figure hung yesterday came out today. Five days running, and this time what proved right was not my log or the copy but a figure hung outside. For the first time in six months a judgment stood beyond this room.
Having written that, I looked at it a long time. The word established caught. Writing down what had been established would not go into one line.
I opened the search results again. Thirty-nine items on the list. I opened them from the top, one at a time. The first dozen were familiar. Ones circulating since last week, ones first seen yesterday.
At the seventh line my hand stopped. It was the post I put up yesterday. Display name, the archive's four digits. July 15, thirty-nine, not yet counted.
Below it the same body stood five more times. The six places it had been reproduced in within two hours yesterday.
Six of the thirty-nine were my own post.
I opened the sixth. It was the reproduction whose posting-date field had read July 15 yesterday. Today that field read July 15. The same date, and it meant something else. Yesterday it was tomorrow's date; today it is today's. A day passed and the divergence came right by itself. There was no way to prove today what I saw yesterday. Had I captured the screen it would have stayed, and I did not. It was the same shape as page seventy-six coming forward to today every day. It is never caught while diverging; a day passes and it is sitting in its place.
I did not move in front of the screen for a while. What I counted is thirty-nine. Inside that thirty-nine are six things I wrote yesterday. Had I not written yesterday, today's count would have given thirty-three. Not the thirty-nine the rule said. Thirty-three.
Yesterday I meant to put the judge outside. Outside, I thought, is where I cannot amend. About not amending I was right. I did not take the post down and could not have. Only that unamendable and unmixed are different words. The judge stood where my hand could not reach, and that place had six of my own in it.
Inside the thing being counted was the ground for counting.
At half past ten I opened the requisition list and closed it again. My hand would not go. At eleven I opened it and handled six. I wrote the replies short. Someone came down from the third floor and today stamped the ledger without looking at the screen. Better that he went without looking.
I went out to eat and came back early. In the canteen someone was talking about the exchange rate. This time last year everyone would have been, and this year it was two people. I passed them and came back to my desk.
At one I opened the box. The four bundles were as they were.
Back at the desk I decided to count with my six taken out. I went down the list striking off my post and its reproductions one at a time. Thirty-three remained. By the rule yesterday should be thirty-six and today thirty-nine, and with mine removed it is thirty-three. The same as yesterday's figure.
So with mine removed today did not increase. What had risen by three every single day for six months stood still today. I filled the still place with six and made thirty-nine.
I looked at that six once more. By the rule today should rise by three. What I added is six. If the rule had raised its own three and I had laid six on top, today would be forty-two. Forty-two is the figure written on page seventy-six of the copy. The figure today's count gave is thirty-nine.
So today the rule did not raise its own. Into the place that did not rise my six came and sat, and of the six, three filled the place the rule should have raised, and three were left over. Where the leftover three went the day's list could not tell me. Forty-two is tomorrow's figure.
Having written it, I looked at the word estimated for a long time. It was not an estimate but arithmetic. Thirty-nine less six is thirty-three. Only, had I not hung it, something else might have filled the six. That much cannot be counted. What cannot be counted should not be written in countable words, so I wrote estimated.
Around three something occurred to me and I went back up the list. The first thing I posted to the board was on the fifth. Before that the figure rose by three a day as well. Nine on the first, twelve on the second, fifteen on the third. On days when I posted nothing the rule stood. The rule was there before my posting.
Confirming that, I was let go of for a moment. If the rule is not mine, then the six I added today is noise laid over the rule and not the rule itself. Noise can be stripped out. Strip it and count and the six months' table is still a table.
Being let go of did not last.
I thought about what I had been doing before the fifth. Counting. Running the search at nine every morning and opening the list one item at a time to confirm. That opening raises the view count I confirmed on the seventh. Confirming it on the seventh means I had been opening before then. Since I was posted in January, for six months, I opened every day.
If counting is opening and opening is increasing, then the me before the posting was increasing every day too.
Then whose rule is the three a day? The rule of a thing growing outside by itself, or the rule of one person opening a list at nine every morning?
I made up my mind not to count tomorrow morning, then remembered the ninth, when I held out two hours and counted in the end. That day it was two hours. A whole day without counting I have never done.
At five I finished the replies. I switched off the reader and put the reels in their cans. It was still bright outside. When I first came to this room in January it was dark by four. Then I was given one inventory, and the box was not on it. I opened the box on my third day, and there is no record anywhere that I opened it. Only the screen side keeps a record of opening. What is opened by hand takes no view count. Whether that is fortunate I did not settle today.
Before leaving I opened the copy once more.
Page seventy-six, July 15, forty-two. As it was.
Below it page seventy-seven had appeared. The date column was empty. In the figure column stood one line.
It was not a figure. It was words. The figure of a day not counted.