A Warden's Drain-Ledger

A water-ruined gaol ledger listing what the bluff gaol flushes down its drains — and the standing House order not to count where it goes.

Most of the pages have run to grey pulp, but the ruled columns still show: dates, a column for what went down the drains, and a column left deliberately blank. Cells. Overflow. Refuse. And, in a careful clerk's hand, entries that are not refuse — a name struck through, a date, DOWN. Pinned inside the cover, a House instruction in better ink: The drains are the House's memory hole. What falls in it is not the House's concern and not the House's count. Do not ask where it goes. Do not follow it. A warden's later hand has written under that, small: it goes to the sump. It does not stay drowned. I am not asking where it goes. I am leaving.