Final Position

story eight · figures 22–24

The story →

FINAL POSITION · THE LAST EVENING, IN ORDER — three hundred words · eight acts, and only one of them is required by the letter FINAL POSITION · THE LAST EVENING, IN ORDER three hundred words · eight acts, and only one of them is required by the letter he buttons his shirt top to bottom slowly, twice his own he peels an orange in one unbroken spiral and eats it looking at the peel his own he writes his name, once with each hand and the two names agree his own HE SETS THE FIELD TO CLOSED the one act the letter asked for the counterparty’s he lies down and puts his living hand inside the other his own at midnight, universal time, the fingers come down gently, on the last of the charge, and hold the hand’s he stays until morning his own a letter comes, in the second week thanking him · it encloses a small credit the counterparty’s SIX OF THE EIGHT ARE UNBILLED, UNASKED FOR, AND UNRECORDED. The other two are the counterparty’s: the one act the letter asked for — the field the story is named after — and the letter that thanks him for it. He buttons the shirt twice. Nobody asked him to do it once.
22 · Final Position
FINAL POSITION · ELEVEN YEARS OF NIGHTLY REPORTS — what the hand phoned home, every night, for four thousand and fifteen nights FINAL POSITION · ELEVEN YEARS OF NIGHTLY REPORTS what the hand phoned home, every night, for four thousand and fifteen nights one of these nights grip tremor temperature and: the month he stopped opening jars for two THE HAND PHONES HOME EVERY NIGHT. IT HAS DONE SO SINCE HE WAS FORTY-TWO. A MARRIAGE ENDED INSIDE A TELEMETRY FEED, AND THE FEED NOTICED. Grip, tremor and temperature are what the counterparty asked for. The month he stopped opening jars for two is what the data means — and it is the only line of it the story bothers to read aloud. "Soon home will not answer. There is no local mode." ELEVEN YEARS OF EVIDENCE ABOUT A MAN, KEPT BY A COMPANY THAT IS ABOUT TO SWITCH IT OFF.
23 · Final Position
FINAL POSITION · ONE FIELD, TWO VALUES — under POWER-DOWN there is a single field · the choice is his, and it is priced by someone else FINAL POSITION · ONE FIELD, TWO VALUES under POWER-DOWN there is a single field · the choice is his, and it is priced by someone else OPEN what it costs THEM must be attended by a technician a visit, billed, forever CLOSED what it costs THEM need never be visited again nothing, ever again FINAL POSITION WHAT THE FIELD DOES NOT ASK · whether the hand should stay open so that it can be held · whether eleven years of nightly reports belong to him · who bought the machines — the letter does not say · what the two names agreeing on a page was for HE SETS IT TO CLOSED, AND PUTS HIS LIVING HAND INSIDE THE OTHER, AND IS THANKED, AND PAID. THE SYSTEM OFFERS HIM A CHOICE BETWEEN TWO OF ITS OWN COSTS AND CALLS IT HIS FINAL POSITION. He answers it in the only register left to him, which is with his body, at midnight, on the last of the charge.
24 · Final Position

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