Order Was Restored

story twenty-six · figures 76–78

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ORDER WAS RESTORED · THE SCALE HAS FIVE STEPS — eleven on the roster, not called anything · the badge names a department that does not describe the work ORDER WAS RESTORED · THE SCALE HAS FIVE STEPS eleven on the roster, not called anything · the badge names a department that does not describe the work ONE PRESENCE you stand where you can be seen and the trouble usually returns to its seat TWO THE HAND AT THE ELBOW offered from the side, never the front THREE THE CHAIR you bring a chair, and a chair is very hard to shout in FOUR THE QUIET ROOM twenty minutes free · water · no clock · "The quiet room works. He has never said so out loud." FIVE — not used today · the man’s arm was thinner than the coat suggested and did not resist TODAY IS A RAMP. THE BOARD SAYS TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY AND A MAN AT THE FRONT HAS TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE. The clerk has said the thing the clerk must say, and the man has begun to explain about his mother. In the quiet room he says: "One word." He has a flask, the half-size kind the market sells, and holds it the whole time and does not open it. "I taught her the long ones. I thought the long ones." Twenty minutes is free. He uses eleven of them. THE WALKING PACE IS THE TRAINING.
76 · Order Was Restored
ORDER WAS RESTORED · THE REPORT, AND WHAT IT HAS ROOM FOR — one field for the intervention, which takes a number · and one line beneath it with room for eleven words ORDER WAS RESTORED · THE REPORT, AND WHAT IT HAS ROOM FOR one field for the intervention, which takes a number · and one line beneath it with room for eleven words INTERVENTION 3 REMARKS Attended, chair, quiet room. No mark. Order was restored. eleven words · the same eleven he always writes what the field can hold a number between one and five what the line can hold eleven words what happened in the room a man said "One word." and held an unopened flask for eleven minutes what is not asked what the room was like BEFORE it was restored who has ever asked nobody "NOBODY HAS EVER ASKED HIM WHAT THE ROOM WAS LIKE BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED." The form has a field for the method and a line for the summary, and no field at all for the hour that the method was applied to. ELEVEN WORDS, WRITTEN THE SAME WAY EVERY TIME, ARE THE WHOLE ARCHIVE OF WHAT THESE ELEVEN PEOPLE DO.
77 · Order Was Restored
ORDER WAS RESTORED · THE MAN WHO RESTORES ORDER, IN ARREARS — he is one queue away from the man he moved this morning, and he has run the numbers on a Sunday with the good pen ORDER WAS RESTORED · THE MAN WHO RESTORES ORDER, IN ARREARS he is one queue away from the man he moved this morning, and he has run the numbers on a Sunday with the good pen 239 the man at the ramp turned back · explains about his mother 240 THE BOARD, TODAY one word short 91 HIS OWN FILE in arrears 206 HIS WIFE four years of Thursdays left in her HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HIM IF HE EVER STANDS AT THE FRONT OF A QUEUE AND BEGINS TO EXPLAIN. At the end of the shift the coats go on the rail, eleven numbered hooks, and his is four. Somebody drew a chair on the wall above hook one, badly, years ago, and every one of them has laughed at it at least once. He puts the chair back against the wall himself, where it can be got to in one motion by whoever is on tomorrow. ON THE STAIRS HE THINKS ABOUT A FISH HE DID NOT BUY ON TUESDAY, AND THAT IS THE WHOLE OF THE THOUGHT.
78 · Order Was Restored

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