Effects

story eighteen · figures 52–54

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EFFECTS · THE TRAY, AND WHAT EACH THING PROVES — the office of effects · three rooms and a wall of shallow trays · the water gives up what it gives up EFFECTS · THE TRAY, AND WHAT EACH THING PROVES the office of effects · three rooms and a wall of shallow trays · the water gives up what it gives up a watch, the kind you wind stopped at a quarter past something · one initial on the case it is his father’s watch · the initial he polishes with his cuff without thinking a tram ticket folded to the width of a nail, folded and refolded the fold of a man deciding not to spend · it is his fold a pocket dictionary swollen to twice its life · dog-eared at a page the water has taken he tries it once, on the second evening · fused to one wet stone of words · it opens nowhere a bone button, and the rest ordinary, until it is not the junior is the one who finds him the tray HE PUTS HIS THUMB TO THE READER TO OPEN THE REGISTER, AS HE DOES FORTY TIMES A DAY, and the screen holds him and returns a sentence he has only ever seen printed on other people’s files. The register has matched the tray. The card prints while he stands there. The name on the card is his name, whole — and the entry it wakes is his entry. A MAN READS HIS OWN LIFE OFF A TRAY OF SOMEBODY ELSE’S POCKET CONTENTS.
52 · Effects
EFFECTS · ONE NAME, TWO BROTHERS — the registry winter the family went in with two boys and a strike to place · the record had not erred; it had waited EFFECTS · ONE NAME, TWO BROTHERS the registry winter the family went in with two boys and a strike to place · the record had not erred; it had waited THE ONE WHO CAME HOME THE ONE WHO DID NOT the name went where the name went nothing to identify he lived beneath the reading renewals · entries · a desk fee of a schooling the small correct life of a documented man no renewals · no entries no queue he could stand in thirty years in the office of effects his signature closes a dozen files a day no rate he could save toward a man made entirely of effects forty readings a day at the thumb reader it has never once felt like his he went to the water the crossing that is not sold the tray brings them back into one file "HE STOPPED HAVING A BROTHER THE WINTER HE TURNED SIX." And beneath the rule, in the old type the amendments never touch: A NAME CAN CROSS ONCE. So the office holds one name and two brothers, and the name is good for one crossing, and it has always been good for one. THE RECORD HAD NOT ERRED. IT HAD WAITED.
53 · Effects
EFFECTS · WHAT THE SIGNATURE COSTS, AND WHAT IT BUYS — a box on the form for the identifying officer’s own retention · priced at four words a year, for as long as the file is open EFFECTS · WHAT THE SIGNATURE COSTS, AND WHAT IT BUYS a box on the form for the identifying officer’s own retention · priced at four words a year, for as long as the file is open IF HE SIGNS · the identification stands · the body becomes the name and the name boards the dusk boat · the fare is paid from the old account the crossing that was never sold to his brother · the declaration of interest is priced four words a year, while the file is open IF HE DOES NOT · the water keeps what it took · a man made entirely of effects stays that way · the name remains good for one crossing his own, later · and he keeps his four words a year and the tray goes back on the wall HE THINKS ABOUT IT FOR TWO DAYS, WHICH THE OFFICE ALLOWS. THE WATER IS PATIENT AND THE TRAYS DO NOT SPOIL. On the third morning he signs. The reader wants the signature against the specimen, and the specimen is a name in a child’s careful hand, taken the registry winter — each letter placed, not made. He confirms the identity of the deceased in his own hand, which no file in the city has ever held. The watch goes with the boat, wound. He retains the dictionary, swollen shut. Under REMARKS he writes nothing. AT THE DESK THE MAN WINDS A WATCH HE NO LONGER HAS, THE WRIST REMEMBERING THE WEIGHT.
54 · Effects

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