OBSERVATION LOG — EARTH
entries declassified: 77
“My strategy is standing still. It has not failed yet.”
Γ·λ⊢∩⊐⊙∧＋Ĺ·χ∥—Ⅰ⊙Ν SUBJECT SCRIPT · UNTRANSLATED
ACCESS NOTE · APPENDED BY THE SUBJECT
This log is internal. It becomes public without my participation. A complaint has been filed. The Council has not responded. Since you are reading it anyway: the entries are accurate, the numbering is not sequential, and I will not discuss the cats.
— TarfFRAGMENT TL-3990 · ARCHIVE
LOG DAY 3990
I have learned three hundred of your languages. Two hundred and forty of them are dead. Each one took a decade and ended in a room with the last speaker, who was pleased to be understood. This is the part of the assignment I do not report to the Council.
FRAGMENT TL-2626 · RESTRICTED
LOG DAY 2626
The Hum is not in your ears. Two of every hundred of you hear it, always at night, always the same low note, and your doctors test your hearing and find nothing wrong. Nothing is wrong. It is reported in identical words on every continent by people who have never met. Microphones find it in the ground, not the air. I am not authorized to say what is running. I am authorized to say it started before you did.
FRAGMENT TL-2718 · ARCHIVE
LOG DAY 2718
Some of you believe the sky is a dome. I have flown through where the dome would be. There is no dome. There is something higher that you have not found. It is not a dome. That is all I am authorized to say. Of all your wrong theories, this one is the least wrong. This concerns me.
FRAGMENT TL-2555 · ARCHIVE
LOG DAY 2555
Lake Vostok is not frozen. Four kilometres of ice above it, water the size of a small sea beneath, sealed fifteen million years. You drilled into it in twenty twelve. Living things came up in the samples. The findings were published quietly and the hole was left to ice over. In fragment one hundred I called that ice a seal with a service interval. This was not an inspection. Inspections are scheduled. Find out who signed for the hole.
FRAGMENT TL-2777 · INCIDENT
LOG DAY 2777
In 1911 I was recorded as deceased. The clerk had the wrong house. Correcting the error would have required documents I could not produce, so I permitted it to stand and moved two streets away. I have been legally dead in one of your countries for a century. It has caused no difficulties. The Council rates this incident as my most efficient.
FRAGMENT TL-2480 · SURVEILLANCE
LOG DAY 2480
Someone requested my file this week. Not a file about me. My file, by its correct designation, which is not public and is not in any of your languages. The request was denied at a level above the requester. I have not been told who asked. I have been told to continue as normal.
FRAGMENT TL-2200 · RESTRICTED
LOG DAY 2200
Regarding the cats: my position has not changed. I would, however, like to correct an assumption that appears in your messages. You have been asking what the cats are. That is the wrong question, and I have been permitting it for some time.
FRAGMENT TL-0085 · ARCHIVE
LOG DAY 85
In 1963 a man knocked a wall out of his house. Behind it, eighteen floors going down. Room for twenty thousand people, and stone doors that lock from the inside. The inside is the bottom. It had been sealed since before your written history. I signed the paper that closed it. The man was renovating. It has stood open ever since. I have applied to have it closed again eleven times. The application needs a second line: what was sealed in. That line comes back struck out, so the file still says closed, and nobody goes to look. You sell tickets now. You walk through the door I closed.
FRAGMENT TL-2510 · SURVEILLANCE
LOG DAY 2510
There are men whose entire profession is to determine whether I exist. They have budgets, instruments and secure rooms. I have watched three of them retire. I attended the second retirement. There was cake. Nobody asked who I was.
FRAGMENT TL-4110 · TRANSMISSION
LOG DAY 4110
The amendment to my complaint has been declassified. It appears in the public record as a blank page with a reference number. The reference number is correct. The page is not blank in the original. I am told this is a formatting issue and that it will be resolved. Filed.
FRAGMENT TL-0999 · RESTRICTED
LOG DAY 999
You have noticed that I pay rent and buy coffee and have never once mentioned employment. You are not the first to notice. The Council noticed in 1690 and opened an inquiry. The inquiry is ongoing. I am cooperating fully and will not be discussing it here.
FRAGMENT TL-1948 · RESTRICTED
LOG DAY 1948
The sky is not empty. It is quiet, which is a different thing. Nobody transmits, because transmitting is how a world gets catalogued, and being catalogued is not always followed by a visit. You have broadcast continuously for a hundred years. Your strongest signals are entertainment. My report on that decision is one page. The Council asked me to confirm it was voluntary. I confirmed. They asked a second time. There has been no third question.
Appendix
