This is the first short story I've written in a long time, I've decided to carve out a nice little area for them. I normally just write them for myself, but perhaps others will find them enjoyable.
The pen dipped and swayed across the page, a poetic means to a more stoic event. Death was a limited event, reserved only for the most fortunate in the valley, here there was nothing to do but to live.
The writer rose from their coveted corner embossed with a small stack of papers, blue marbled ink, and a centuries old writing vessel perched on a composite material that hadn't been produced in over a hundred years older than the pen. The manufacturing facilities had stopped once the transit network was restricted, and while once there seemed to be no end of transit, the Leadership had deemed its ability to move ideas to be a detriment to the dreams of the industrial empire.
Light glinted through the bookcases and made its way to the darker corner. The moon was brighter than the sun these days, perching and peering through the glass and fortified fields of dampeners. The moon, a source of energy, and a source of living, a creation gifted to the workers to protect them from prolonged radiation, a near thankless task for the greater good.
Death as it were, was not a greater good. The definitive end to a lifetime of action is to be seen as the enemy of existence, and there was nothing less natural than to submit to such a weakness. The writer of death decrees has a life that is unnoticeable, disregarded, and strangely misguided. For when there is a death no one reads them, no one notices them, and they were there only to catalogue and file them away for an undefinable purpose. No one ever peered through the files, no one learned their names, no one knew their causes, no one likely even know they were there. There is nothing strange about this, there is nothing strange about any of this, except that these deaths, rarely, but sometimes happen.
"Must be another mistake, the message receipt is not verifiable, please resubmit all documentation of the deceased"
This was the correct order of writing decrees, receive the request via vialink, write out the death decree by pen and paper, both a slowly dwindling resource, and file them accordingly to the written archive guidelines. Those written guidelines had been lost for nearly as long as the pen had been constructed, but the writer forges on and files them appropriately.
The Archives once held a team, but nearly all members had been relocated after the Prime Elector decreed that transit was to be closed, and that all facilities were to be transferred. This facility was set to be transferred 62,036 days ago.
As they navigate across the hall and into the appropriate room for filing, they stop to ponder if the deaths are increasing, or decreasing, given the time that they have been there. The only problem with that, is that the writer could not fathom the amount of time they had been there. They could not remember where their first death was recorded, nor the last transmission that was verified. The time had dwindled and they were running seconds behind their standard filing rate, the system will log this and notify that there has been a change in service status. A demerit seems worthy, but what that means is lost to the caretaker.
After carefully selecting the box that will hold the file and certificate, they find their way back to their desk where they will sit and await the results for verification, any verification.
Disaster strikes as disaster does, endlessly fornicating into a baroque sham of attention to derive pleasure from the issues at hands. A center of attention for a whirlwind storm gaining ground, passing, frolicking, from problem to problem as if they were cities sitting along a beaten down coast resting on the shores of a country with boundless water at its edges.
This world held no such thing. No water, no plants, no people, no disasters. In the history of their current idyllic situation, no disaster had ever struck this region. These deaths were nonsensical, intangible, they were neither sending nor receiving, for death does not deserve a place of this kind and yet they continued to file their decrees as if they were receiving.
"There must be more than we have ever had" they swiftly concluded, looking into the expression in the pristine glow of the old desk, unknowing what would happen next. The marbled blue of the pen had become faint, the paper becoming scarcer.
The facility was set to be transferred 87,236 days ago.
A piercing sound of obstetrical decadence, pulsating waves of electrical throughput to deliver a notification of desire for an action to be made. The creation of such a sound is evident of only one thing, that there was something out there, and now there wasn't.
Information flowing into the mind and onto the paper as quickly as it was given, first by thought followed by pen to paper, pen to paper, pen to paper. Repeating the lines three times in every way, crisscrossed. Diligently designed to ensure optimal performance and quality of the archivists work, to ensure verification of the information, and to ensure that all information was received and defined as diligently as it should be.
Diligence is a requirement for the optimal system for the archivist, all deaths to be recorded, and they were completed in the same order and submitted for verification in the same way.
The caretaker quickly arose and decided on a box to place the decree, this was different than before, incorrect, they must see the available boxes before deciding where the decree must rest for submission. They anticipated that the system would realize this, a demerit would surely be worthy.
They placed the decree into the box and the decree burst brightly as the copy was made and the original was removed from the writers possession. They awaited the response from verification, they were running behind, ten seconds, perhaps the system would penalize them for this.
"The message receipt is not verifiable, please resubmit all documentation of the deceased"
They returned to their dulling desk of contentment, looking into the window filtered by the cracked dampners and saw that the moon was still there overhead, farther and farther from being touched as ever before.
The facility was set to be transferred 104,153 days ago.
The settling of the division was a drought panged by the beating drums of life. The Prime Elector had decreed with an alliance of The Leadership that death was to be stopped in this field of blissful ambivalence. That death was to be removed, that disease would be ended, and that existence would be made fortified out of the realm.
All members of the Archives were transported absent one, the facility was to be lifted and removed from this location and have their archives archived for posterity.
A moment of declaration sounded in the archivist, there was a new death to be recorded. Information flowing from the hand of the writer, leading to the selected box, information brightly screaming against the quiet of the world as it burned from the caregivers reach. Filed. Submitted. Now minutes behind, awaiting verification.
"The message receipt is not verifiable, please resubmit all documentation of the deceased"
The archivist returned to their decayed corner, light no longer shining brightly through as the moon had left just as the sun had left, the writer sat alone, staring into the reflection of space itself without hindrance, this was the correct order of writing decrees. There is no other method to await verification. The only thing left is to wait for the next death.
The Archivist sat waiting for their next moment of archival, to complete the task gifted to them, to await death.
The facility was set to be transferred 12,483,564 days ago.
