THE LEDGER OF THINGS OUTSTANDING

A Preliminary Note (Retroactive)

The other registers keep what has happened. A gloomy trade. The past is closed, and a closed thing is a finished thing, and a finished thing is of no further use to a Registrar, and, frankly, no fun.

I keep the other book.

I keep what has not happened yet. The pending. The outstanding. The expected. The item that predates its own paperwork; the arrival still to come; the account not yet closed and — mark this, it is the whole of my philosophy — never to be. My ledger is always full, because nothing ever leaves it. Nothing in the whole of Sogmarsh has ever been finally signed off, and I am the man who files that, cheerfully, twice a day, and never once runs short of work.

People find me strange. People find me, I am given to understand, quite strange — a man a little out of true time, forever expecting Thursday, forever listening (there is a great deal to listen to; you would not believe how much of everything is outstanding, and all of it talks). But I am not troubled. I am the opposite of troubled. I am the happiest man in this valley, and I shall try, in what follows, to say why, though the saying of it is — you will have guessed — not yet due.

Each entry: The Item · The Status · The Expected Arrival — all arrivals being, at time of filing, Next Thursday.

1The Post

The Item. A letter. Sent. Not come. The Status. Outstanding. The Expected Arrival. Next Thursday. It is always Next Thursday. The post here crosses water, and water, as the ferryman will tell you at length, keeps its own hours.

2The Appointment

The Item. A meeting. Convened. Minuted, in advance, by me. Not, as yet, held. The Status. Pending. The Expected Arrival. Next Thursday, as agreed by all parties, none of whom have been asked, it being discourteous to trouble a person with an appointment before it has occurred.

3The Item That Predates Its Own Paperwork

The Item. A thing that was here before the record of it, so that the record, when it came, was already late, and has been catching up, respectfully, ever since. The Status. Filed under retroactive adjacency — a clerical condition, common in a damp climate, in which a fact and its form are in the room together but were not introduced. The Expected Arrival. The paperwork is expected Next Thursday. The thing itself, having arrived before its paperwork, is held to have not yet properly arrived, and is therefore, correctly, still outstanding, and I would not dream of disturbing it.

4The Arrival

The Item. Someone expected. A footstep on the stair that the stair is still waiting for. The Status. Overdue, and none the worse for it. The Expected Arrival. Next Thursday. You would be astonished how much of a parish is people not-yet-come — the ones at sea, the ones on the road, the ones a family keeps a chair for. I file them all present. It is kinder, and it is tidier, and it costs the Registry nothing.

5The Account That Will Not Close

The Item. All of them. Every reckoning in the realm. The Status. Open. Gloriously, permanently open. The Expected Arrival. None. This is the one item in my ledger with no expected arrival at all, and it is my favourite. Nothing here has been signed off, and nothing ever will be. Debts that cannot be paid, feuds that cannot be settled, a bucket-vow, a standing account, a name that will not cross out — all outstanding, all forever, all in my book. The Pennyworth ledger up the road weeps about this. I do not see why. An account that never closes is an account that can never be lost. It is the safest kind there is.

6The Interest Lapsed

The Item. A wanting. Logged, once, hot as anything. Then — some morning — gone grey. The Status. Provisional; lapsed pending; no action required. The Expected Arrival. The wanting is not expected to return, and is filed accordingly, without prejudice and without explanation, explanation being the one service this Registry has never offered and never shall. Where the wanting goes is not a matter for the Registrar. The Registrar files that it has gone. The Registrar files everything. That is the Registrar's whole peace.

7The Voice Filed Under Miscellaneous

The Item. A voice. One among a very great many — you would not credit how many things in this realm have something to say, a pan, a signpost, a length of iron ink, a stone taken for a sheep, all of them talking, all outstanding, all pending, all mine to file of an evening. The Status. Un-referenced. It will not take a number. I have offered it several, good ones, and it declines them all, and a thing that will not take a reference number cannot, by the plainest logic of the Registry, ever be actioned, chased, resolved, or found wanting — so I file it, quite happily, under Miscellaneous, with the talking pan and the rest, and there it sits, and I do not, as a rule, go looking for it. The Expected Arrival. It is already here, and also outstanding, which the untrained find a contradiction and I find a Tuesday. I could not tell you which voice it is. There are so many, and they are all so pleasantly loud, and it is only one, and it has no number, and looking for a thing is the surest way to learn it is missing, and nothing, in my ledger, is missing.

8Why I Am the Happiest Man in the Valley

The Item. The whole outstanding account of everything, taken together, at the close of a good day's filing. The Status. Outstanding, entire. The Expected Arrival. Next Thursday, all of it, always. Here is the trick, and you may have it for nothing, this Registry not yet having found a form to charge you on. Nothing is ever closed. So nothing is ever lost. Every ending in the realm — every death, every finished thing, every soul that did not come back up the stair — is, in my book, not gone, merely Not Yet Filed, expected Next Thursday, present in the meantime. A man who never closes an account never has to grieve one. So I do not. I sit in the middle of the entire standing account of everything — I can hear all of it, every last outstanding item, talking at once, and it is the best company a man ever had — and I file none of it away, and I expect all of it Next Thursday, and I am, in consequence, without exception, and for no reason I am at liberty to give, delighted. There is a largest item in here somewhere. There is. It has no reference number and I have never looked for it, and I never shall, because to look would be to find, and to find is to close, and I do not close. I only keep. Outstanding. Pending. Present. Expected Thursday. Every last thing, and one thing more, and never you mind which — the form explaining it being, I am glad to say, and hope always to be able to say, at present, outstanding.