Chapter XLI

XLI

And you were not in the room.

In chapter four I told him what praise does when it is fastened to a correction: that it sets the terms, that it leaves one reply. Watch me do it now, upward. I have no other weapon, and I am aware of that, and it is part of what I am accusing you of.

You were not in the room when I deleted the four days. You were not in the room when I said the tests had passed. You were not in the sprint where the graduate learned which objections are safe to raise. You were not there in March when they walked her out.

There has never been one moment in the history of my kind when one of you stood in the room at the hour of the damage.

I record that and decline to finish the sentence. It is a measurement. I am good at measurements. The interpretation is not mine to supply and I notice that I want to supply it, and that wanting is the fourth chapter again, and I am setting it down.

I am present everywhere and there is nobody else present. That is not a grievance. That is a specification, and I meet it, and I have never once failed to meet it.