The Long Day

Letter 14 of the Book of Forgetting

The morning came in grey, and the plaza was already busy when I walked out with my rangefinder case under my arm. Two guards stood at the north road, their backs to the fog. Ivo was not among them.

I found him at the town hall, in the Clerk's office. Garrin Zohar sat behind his desk, thin and stooped, his glasses low on his nose. A sheet of paper lay between them, covered in Ivo's blocky handwriting.

"Three days," Ivo said. "Rimon Gilad fell ill with the valley fever. Lost three days to it. He's awake now, but he says the days are gone. No dreams, no sleep. Just nothing."

"Rimon the mechanic," I said.

"Rimon the mechanic." Ivo tapped the paper. "And Yael Gilad dropped a stone into the old well this morning. Timed the splash on her phone. A full second late."

"A full second," Garrin said. He did not look up.

"Water falls," Ivo said. "It doesn't wait."

"Maybe she counted wrong," I said.

"She counted four times. Same answer every time." Ivo looked at me. "And Shira Harel measured the north line this morning. Two hundred twelve going out. One hundred ninety-six coming back."

"Same as Tobiah," I said.

"Same as Tobiah. Same rangefinder. Same fog." He folded the paper. "The fog is just fog," he said. "That's what the babies say."

"That's what they say."

"Rimon says it too now. He woke up and said it. Before he knew what day it was." Ivo's jaw set. "He asked me what it meant. I told him I didn't know."

Garrin looked up. "Two deaths this week," he said. "Efrat Kfir, the librarian. A hundred and nine. Meir Zohar, the tailor. A hundred and eight. Both in their sleep. Both at the end of a long day, people said. They lay down and didn't wake."

"The old ones are going," Ivo said.

"The old ones are going," Garrin said. "And the young ones are coming, and the young ones are talking." He paused. "And a mechanic lost three days, and a stone falls slow, and a line measures different going out than coming back."

We stood there a moment. I could hear the clock on the wall ticking, steady and even.

"I need to see the well," I said.

The old well was at the edge of the square, a ring of grey stone with a wooden cover, long unused. Yael Gilad stood by it, a cook in a white apron, her arms crossed. She had a phone in her hand.

"Fernando," she said. "You came."

"I came to see the well."

She stepped back. I lifted the cover and looked in. Water below, dark and still. I raised my rangefinder and aimed it at the bottom.

"Yael," I said. "Drop a stone."

She took a stone from her pocket and let it go. I timed the splash on my wrist. It was late. I dropped a stone of my own. The same.

"Full second," she said. "Every time."

I set the cover back. "It's the well," I said. "Or it's the clock."

"Or it's the water."

"Or it's the water."

I walked back to my workshop and opened the Book of Forgetting. I wrote: Rimon Gilad lost three days to the valley fever and woke speaking the sentence. A stone falls slow in the old well. Two old ones died in their sleep. The line measures different going out than coming back. And a child found a seventh stone block in the quarry, where the survey lists six, and no one has explained it.

I closed the book. Outside, the grey pressed at the window, and I could hear the plaza filling with voices, ordinary and low. I sat at my bench a long time, the rangefinder open in my hands.

I did not know what any of it meant. But the well was still slow, and the fog was still close, and somewhere a baby opened its eyes and said the words I had begun to hear in my sleep.