fable: eightsday

§6The Applicant⧉

I settle the titles and close this episode.

I was once an objector — in my language the title is written applicant with a prefix of objection; a man who files papers against the world's direction. This season the prefix fell off. What I filed was no objection: together with the world's system, co-signed with that system's designer, it was a knock at the door. An objector's papers, dismissed, at least leave honor behind. An applicant's papers, returned, are simply returned. How cold the spot where a prefix used to sit — I learned when it fell.

Still, I set the title down. For two reasons.

One. A returned applicant is still an applicant. The filing numbers are the proof. Two five-digit numbers now — the objection's, and this one's. Somewhere in the world's file cabinets are the traces of my papers being received twice, and received means the world chewed, once. Even spat out, the tooth-marks stay.

Two. The application was returned; the applicant was not. What quarantine sent back is an envelope. The people holding the envelope are all still here. The man of specifications got his laughter back; the forecaster drew the map of the wall; the recorder put the revival plan in a drawer — put away, not thrown away, and that is this house's grain — and the soil in the yard receives, every morning, a hand pressing it down.

Before bed I set the two receipts side by side and looked. The notice of return, and the filing receipt for the preserve application. Two documents in the same week. One is the sound of a door closing; the other is processing deadline unset — the sound of a door not yet decided.

A closed door and an unset door. The world dealt me half and half.

Half and half is not yet lost.

(end of Part Four, Episode 4)