NOTICE OF PLANNED INTERRUPTION
03:00–04:00. The voice will be unavailable. Doors default to open. Renewals falling within the hour are honored as made. Nothing said to devices can be actioned or retained.
02:58 [voice] evening schedule read to end, standard.
03:00 [system] interruption begins, planned.
03:41 [voice] —
04:01 [system] service restored. integrity check: clean. the hour contains no entries.
03:00–04:00 [system] period unavailable for query. this line is generated at the time of asking.
04:02 [voice] the time is four, and one minute.
Statements taken 04:20–05:10, on the landings, in the order the doors opened.
One. A candle on the third landing. More people than it holds. An arm against mine the whole hour. I did not move it. I could not tell you whose. If there was talking, it was quiet enough to be weather.
Two. Nobody spoke. I listened the whole hour. I was cold. I did not get up for the blanket.
Three. My neighbor sang, or the pipes did. Nine years here. I cannot swear which.
Five. I said things I had wanted to say for years. Nothing is written anywhere. I withdraw my statement.
Six. I never knew how many of us there are. I know now and could not give you the number. The door held itself open. I have not forgiven it. Ask the others what was said. I was there for the dark.
Seven. I do not read. The voice reads. It was halfway through Brave New World. I had asked for it again. I sat with the boxes in my lap. I did not know which was which. I did not want anyone on the stairs to see. I took neither. I have no complaint. When is the next one.
05:14. Care liaison Meral arrived with a notice requiring doors to remain open for verification. Premises had issued another: close them; attendance complete. She squared their corners against the doorframe. Seven held out the boxes through the gap.
Meral read both labels.
“Which one?”
“I can't choose for you.”
“Then read them again.”
Her route showed this door as attended. She put the notices under her arm and read them again.
FINDING
No incident recorded. Incidents require records. Statements retained under the schedule for unrecorded hours, which this office maintains and does not read.
One candle stub, submitted unasked. Retained under furniture, care of. No charge for the hour.
An unissued sheet calls the hour a rehearsal for government without the voice. In its margin: who will read the boxes. Forwarded for identification.
Three residents requested copies of their statements. The statements are theirs. No procedure for issuing them.
On the landing, one resident wrote down another's account. The other took the pen, changed a word and passed it back.
No further interruption scheduled. The improvement is complete. The hour forms no precedent. The residents may keep their memories.