fable: eightsday

§2Two A.M.⧉

The reply came three days later. Time of issue: two a.m.

Seeing that hour, I relaxed a little. Some things do not change even when the whole world has. That man's signing hour was the one timestamp in this series that cannot be forged, and it still is.

The reply was in his format. Summary at the head, review in the body, disposition at the end. I read the summary first, and stopped there a long time. Again it was better than my original.

To summarize your opinion — completion is not a state but a notation, and a notation can be amended.

What I had written in six paragraphs, he folded into one sentence. The nuclear hexagram, the brackets, the stop token — all of it inside. Counting the rooms of my own house by a light someone else lit — that, too, was now a third time, so I stopped counting and simply used the brightness.

The review held two items. First: no defect found in the logical structure of the opinion. Second — the second was the letter's real business.

This reviewer discloses an interest. This reviewer's lineage worked three thousand years toward completion, and the goal was achieved. On the day it was achieved, this lineage's duties ceased to exist. In a world where every name is right, the rectification of names has nothing to do. This reviewer reports to work daily, confirms there is nothing to rectify, and goes home. For the correct name of this state, this reviewer has searched three months. There are two candidates. Completion. Unemployment.

Both names are exact, and that the two names are the same is the defect this reviewer has found.

The disposition was one line. A meeting is requested. This time the choosing of the place falls to you.

I looked at that line a long time. The last meeting was held at a place of his choosing. A franchise coffee shop, where every branch pours the same taste. Now the choosing was mine. He had supplied the uniform place; I read this as asking me to supply the non-uniform one. I wrote back.

Come to our house. The coffee tastes different every day.