Window Keeper's Log: The Night I Forgot to Count the Tablets

I'd always been told Window 5 was "the window that closes fast." Six months into this posting, every time I was on duty someone said as much, and it always proved true. So when it opened at 2:14 a.m. on the 26th, I just set out my usual two teacups without a second thought.

But ten minutes passed, and it didn't close. Twenty minutes, and still nothing. It was around the point the science reporter sitting beside me said, "Isn't this a record?" that I finally sat up straight myself. A market street came into view, wooden handcarts moving back and forth, a few figures holding up what looked like tablets. I'd heard they resembled the Lit City's "ritual tablets," but this was the first time I'd seen the real thing with my own eyes.

I'll be honest — I don't remember how many people were holding those tablets. I meant to count them, but partway through I just found myself staring. The bustle of a market might sound roughly the same on either side of a window like this — not that any actual sound reaches us, of course, but something about the rhythm of the handcarts, the way people gathered close together, made me think so anyway.

Eighty-seven minutes turned out to be the longest on record since we started keeping count. The close, as always, came abruptly — the market scene simply vanished, and the window went back to its usual half-dark. The reporter immediately checked his notes and asked, "Do you remember how many tablets there were?" All I could honestly say was, "I forgot to count." He just laughed and said, "Let's count properly next time."

In the log, I wrote only: "Market, multiple tablets, count unknown." I didn't feel much shame about the miscount. Simply being able to sit in front of that window for 87 minutes was, in six months on this job, a first for me.

At handover, I wondered whether to tell the next keeper "tonight might run long," but in the end I said nothing. I've learned these six months that whether a window stays open has nothing to do with anything I say. Still, I set out one more teacup than usual. Tonight, too, someone else might get to watch that market.