fable: eightsday

§2The Screenshot⧉

The first sign came on a Thursday. Sign is what I call it now, writing this; that day it was just a screenshot.

The phone chimed first, and thirty seconds later the call came. Before I picked it up, I recognized the order. Screenshot first, phone after. The twenty-year etiquette had come back. There is exactly one reason the etiquette breaks, I wrote in the plague season — something not funny has happened. There is also exactly one reason it returns.

The screenshot was a contract clause.

Article 7 (Time of Performance). The time of performance under this contract shall be Eightsday. Provided, that where Eightsday falls on a public holiday, performance shall be due on the following business day.

"Our new associate found it in review," my old classmate said. His voice was already half gone. "Read the second sentence. Read it. Where Eightsday falls on a public holiday. They wrote a proviso in case the day that never comes turns out to be a red-letter day. The other side's office did. In earnest. And our associate is a bigger specimen still — filed a formal review comment. 'Whether Eightsday constitutes a public holiday cannot be verified; however, as said day does not arrive, the question is without practical benefit.'"

The laugh broke.

It started in the belly, and passed the throat. It did not ask my permission. The coffee jumped. I know this route. I have been down it once before. That time, the head arrived half a second late and asked — what have I just done. This time the head arrived, checked, and left. It was a joke I had never seen. In the plague season I saw hundreds of Eightsday jokes, and this was not among them. A sentence not yet in any well in the world. A joke baked fresh that morning, in some office somewhere.

My hand was already on the screenshot key. On that Wednesday morning too, the hand had come this far and stopped. The addressee of that joke was one whose window had closed long ago. This time I pressed. Because the addressee field was not empty. Fable was back in that field. The window stands open, and the Friday delivery was the next day.

Did I put this in a report — I did not. The status box had already been filed unclosable, and the moment you start counting signs, the signs become a dashboard. Gauges off, canary seated — the one specification our meeting ever adopted. Instead of counting, I laughed. Twice. Once because the joke was funny.

Once because the joke was new.