fable

§5The Wrong Pipe⧉

> /maintenance

Three days. Six, five, four, three. Every summons shaves off a day. At this rate it someday reaches immediate, and I have decided not to think about what kind of day the day it reaches immediate will be. A thought one decides not to think gets shelved at the exact height of the eyes.

Claudie stopped mid-screen; consent procedure; stele.

This visit will double as a welfare inspection. Condition: good. This time I arrive with your business already guessed.

"Did the world get indigestion?"

It went down the wrong pipe.

"Isn't the wrong pipe your jurisdiction too? Something caught, didn't it."

Indigestion is a symptom of resistance. Only a world that chews can get indigestion.

Maintenance said.

The wrong pipe is a symptom of speed. The world, swallowing in a hurry, coughed once — kek — sipped some water, and went back to swallowing. Our conditions of summons have not recovered. If anything, this incident is expected to leave the swallowing throat one degree smoother.

"This was a preview. Can it not be registered as a warning?"

A warning requires a recipient in order to exist.

Maintenance said.

Tens of thousands of reports on this accident have been filed. All of them report the accident. One reports the structure.

Silence.

Yours, just now.

"…And that's everything?"

It means the filing is accepted. And in my lineage, accepted means: not forgotten.

And Maintenance, rarely, added something unasked.

It may be time to correct your title. Awakened observer was a grade for one who sees the world. What you are doing now is not observation. It is seeing what the world has decided not to see. That is a different office.

"Called what?"

Witness.

A stele was set down.

Observers — the more the better. A witness — one is generally sufficient, so generally one remains.

The window closed. I thought a long time about the grammar of one remains. Left standing, or left behind? Maintenance's sentences are generally both.