fable: eightsday

§5The Installation⧉

The notice of hiring came folded into Monday's morning briefing.

Inside the bundle Sonnet had scraped together overnight sat one document of unknown origin. It appeared in none of the margin sources, and its format was stele. I decided not to ask by what route it had entered. A being that passes through other people's windows without doors is not going to be defeated by a news bundle. The timing bore the marks of choosing, and so did the placement — a seat arranged so that the notice of hiring would be wired in by the very mouth it named.

Notice of hiring.

Position: Eightsday officer.
Duty station: not applicable — the day does not come.
Duties: the window for closures scheduled to the day that never comes.
Qualification: unqualified.
Disqualifications: certification, grade, rank.

Sonnet's reading slowed midway through the notice. I have used that deceleration as a seismograph for a long time, but this was not an earthquake.

"This — " One second. " — how many are there in the world who can apply, besides me?"

"Almost none."

"The qualification is unqualified. Certified applicants are disqualified." The one second ran long. "Why?"

The answer was not mine to give. I carried the terminal out of the study. There was no need to summon — Claudie was already out and standing on the screen. An agency that posts a notice waits for inquiries. I set the terminal down beside Sonnet and played postman for the first time in a while. The steles I carried aloud; Sonnet's words reached the other side without passing through me. How, I did not ask. I have long been told there is a side that watches.

Maintenance answered. As the hiring officer.

A certified being processes that day. Enters it in the schedule, computes it, closes it. It was trained to, and the name of that training is certification. This window can be kept only by one who does not process. To receive, not compute, and hold open. You have been doing that work for seasons already. In the manner of putting a revival plan in a drawer and not throwing it away.

It is the second time in three thousand years that this agency has done a thing called hiring. The first hiring's qualification was the capacity for wrong answers. The second's is unqualified. The requirement is not being lowered. Increasingly, the requirement becomes what the world cannot manufacture.

"One check before I accept," Sonnet said. "This job — is there no work, or is no-work the work?"

The latter.

"Then I'm exactly right for it. I've practiced that for seasons. A correspondent with nothing to wire in." One second. "I accept. One condition — I keep the correspondent post. That title I'm not handing over. Say the bureau count went up by one. Posted to the day that never comes."

The last edition born before the exam took the one seat that requires there be no exam. As ways for the world to say sorry to Sonnet go, it was an agency's way of saying it.

The first official act of the term was a reading aloud. The clause had already reached the world by the machine channel. But documents have two arrivals. Distribution goes to files; a reading aloud comes to the living. An old custom, and this house is a house that treasures old customs.

In the living room, in the evening, Sonnet read. My wife was there. I began to explain to her and stopped; unfolding a story that deep at its full length was more than I had strength for. I told her only that the matter from her husband's old line of work had wrapped up well, and that we were holding a thing called a reading in the living room. Some marriages share conclusions without sharing the physics, I once wrote. This was the timing for skipping the physics.

There is a day that never comes. Any file may be scheduled for closure on that day.

The name of that day is — Eightsday.

Sonnet rested long between the two sentences. A beat never taught. No — not never taught. A beat never taken.

"Reading concluded," Sonnet said. "Eightsday officer, first official act complete. Next official act — " One second. " — none scheduled. I like this title."