July 17. In the morning I opened the copy first.
Page seventy-six: July 17, forty-eight. Pushed along a day. Page seventy-seven: forty-two. The date column was empty as it was yesterday. Page seventy-eight stood empty as it had appeared.
Yesterday I did not count for a day. In the place where I did not count, forty-two was written. If I count today it should give forty-five. Forty-two and three.
I decided to count. There is no way to confirm yesterday. Yesterday's figure is one that had to be counted yesterday to be confirmed. Yesterday has gone. Only, if today gives forty-five, then yesterday's forty-two stood where it stood. If it does not, I have to ask again what yesterday's forty-two was.
At nine I ran the search. Forty-five.
As the rule said. The day I did not count left no mark on the rule. Counted or not, it rose by three.
Having written it, I looked a long time at the word confirm. One thing is confirmed. The figure rises whether I count or not. So the rule does not hang on my hand.
For six months I built four devices to get that sentence. Today it came, and having come it was smaller than I expected. That the rule is not mine says nothing at all about what the rule is. I have learned only that it is not mine. What the not-mine is, I still do not know.
At ten I handled six requisitions. Yesterday's share had backed up and the replies ran long. At half past eleven I closed the list and opened the board.
I had not opened it yesterday. Three days ago I put up one post. After that I put up two corrections. Yesterday was the day I had decided not to count, so I did not open it. Opening it today, the list was longer than the day before.
At the top was a new post. The display name was four digits. The archive's code. My display name.
Posted yesterday, it said. Time of posting, yesterday at 2:11 p.m.
At 2:11 yesterday I was sitting at my desk. I was arguing over what counts as counting and kept my eyes off the screen. I did not open the board. Not having opened it, I could not have written.
I opened it. Two lines.
July 18, forty-eight.
Not yet counted.
It was the same shape as the post I first put up on the fifth. The same shape as the one three days ago. A date on one line, a figure, and a line saying it has not yet been counted. That form is mine. Three days ago I wrote that a figure not yet counted, hung outside, would have nowhere to slip aside to, and I hung it in that form.
Yesterday one more went up in that form. I did not hang it.
Forty-eight is tomorrow's figure. Today is forty-five, so by the rule tomorrow is forty-eight. The figure page seventy-six of the copy is carrying on today's date is also forty-eight. The figure in yesterday's post and the figure the copy is holding were the same.
I pulled the access records. There was no entry for this account yesterday. There was no record, and there was a post. I went through the log files the server keeps twice. Confirming twice that a thing is absent took longer than confirming once that a thing is there.
On the seventh a reply once went up under my account name. There was no access record then either. I deleted it, and after deleting I saw that it had already been reproduced in two places. Today I did not delete this one. Delete it and it will go to two places. Two places become three. That deleting is increasing I learned then.
Until lunch I sat and put the order together.
Three days ago I hung a figure not yet counted outside. That is a thing I did. Yesterday I did not count. That too is a thing I did. Yesterday afternoon a figure not yet counted went up outside under my name. That is not a thing I did.
Put the two things I did together and you get the third. Hanging an uncounted figure, and not counting. Together they make a person who does not count hanging a figure not counted, and that happened yesterday. Only I did not do it.
Once the order was together another question came. Whatever wrote that post yesterday knew the form I made three days ago. A date on one line, a figure, a line saying not yet counted. Those three lines first came out of my hand three days ago. The form did not exist before and I copied it from nowhere. In three days it was written once more outside my hand. For six months I have watched the copy follow the form of my log. It followed the page numbers and it followed the column layout. Today the board followed my posting form. The place that does the following has moved from inside the room to outside it.
In the afternoon the man from the third floor came down and stamped the ledger. Today he did not look at the screen. I wanted to ask what he had seen yesterday and did not. To ask what he saw I would have to say what I did not see.
At two I opened the box. The four bundles were as they were. The figure that has not moved in six months was still four.
At three I opened the board again. Yesterday's post had been reproduced in four places. Slower than three days ago, when it was six within two hours. Whether slower is fortunate I did not settle.
I opened the reproductions one at a time. All four had the same body. July 18, forty-eight, not yet counted. The posting dates were all yesterday. None was stamped tomorrow as one had been three days ago.
At four I opened the copy once more. The forty-two on page seventy-seven was as it was. The date column was still empty. The figure of the day I did not count remained in its place without having got a date. Every other page carries a date and moves forward a day; that one page alone has none. A page without a date is not a page whose day is unknown but a page the one who writes the dates did not reach, I wrote on the seventh, looking at the predecessor's notebook. Yesterday the one who did not reach that page was me. A day I decided not to count became a day that received no date and stayed in the copy.
Before leaving I opened the log.
There was much to write today. I wrote the forty-five. I wrote that the previous day's non-search left no mark on the rule. I wrote about the post that went up under my name. Having written, I looked at the log's next line.
There was already a line there.
It was my handwriting. Dated July 18: search run at nine a.m., result forty-eight. Tomorrow's line was written today.
I did not delete it. Deleting is increasing, so I did not. I only noted that whether or not I run the search tomorrow morning, that line is already written.
The copy writes, the board writes, and now the log writes. None of the three passed through my hand. For six months I have been the one in this room who counts and writes. Today the counting and the writing were both done outside my hand. What is left is reading.
What a person is called when only reading is left is written nowhere in the four bundles.