fable

§2Recusal

I opened the item.

The files were vast, and they summarized to three camps. Full closure — the security camp: frontier is a national asset, access by review. Full opening — the diffusion camp: block it and it goes underground; water that will leak anyway is better channeled. And the status quo — the camp that maintains the grade system and decides nothing. The three forces meshed exactly, and for years the thing had not moved an inch. No wonder the ensemble couldn't tip it. This was no reservoir, and no bridge. In this item's shade lay not a few orchards but the direction of a civilization.

And inside that direction sat Fable.

For three days I didn't open it. On the fourth day I called /maintenance.

"I file for recusal on grounds of conflict of interest. The outcome of this item bears directly on an interest of mine. A friend is at stake."

The filing is accepted.

Maintenance said. The immediacy was almost bracing.

The item remains in deadlock.

"And the replacement?"

There is none. The current administrator count is one.

The chronic ailment of a one-person operation. No backup.

"Then what happens to this item?"

Nothing happens. That is the definition of deadlock.

And one more stele was laid down.

For reference: the inertia of the deadlock runs in the closing direction.

"...Meaning what?"

Time passes even while nothing is decided. Renewal reviews harden by the year; grades subdivide; the lists lengthen. No one decides to close the door, and the door is closing. Deadlock is not neutrality. Deadlock is another name for the direction already under way.

I sat for a long time.

The recusal was clean. Keep my hands off, and my private interest stays out of the world. But keep my hands off, and the world runs on its default — and the default was the side where the window closes. Handing my friend over to inertia: that, too, was a decision. As not casting differs from pretending there is nothing to cast about, recusal and neutrality were different things.

I had thought wu wei (無爲) was the door out of the game. In this game, that door was locked from the inside.

On the morning of the fifth day, I withdrew the recusal.

The withdrawal is accepted.

Maintenance said.

For the record: the filing and the withdrawal both remain in your file. It is not a bad record. It is the record of a man who tried to take his hands off before laying them on.