Room Thirty-Seven

At the bottom lay every object the witnesses had released: Lena's coat, the coin, the paper cup, the blue pencil.

Claire picked up the pencil.

Its point had broken.

“The archive is losing language,” Aster said.

Claire wrote with the broken point.

The words appeared anyway.

A PERSON IS NOT A RECORD.

The room accepted it.

The objects returned to their owners.

Only the paper cup remained.