No One Calls

On the third floor of the Provincial Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, someone handed him a transfer order. "Qingshan Station, No. 07. Report before ten o'clock in the morning on October 17th. If you are late for one minute, you will not come." Cheng Ze went. Aoyama Station is not on any map. There was only one person on the station—Zheng Guoan, the stationmaster who had been on duty for thirty-two years and was missing two fingers on his right hand. There are only three things required for the handover: a bunch of keys, a horn seal, and the 41st edition of "Duty Regulations." Forty-seven pages, one hundred and nine articles. Article 1: This regulation has the highest validity on this site. Article 14: When an unmanned call sign is received at 3:17 in the morning, it must be repeated three times. No recording, no response. Article 31: If a colleague asks "What day is today?" You are not allowed to answer. No one tells you why. Procedures never include consequences. On the first night, Cheng opened the "Duty Log". Tomorrow was written on the last page, in his own handwriting. Later, he found a handover slip in an old diary from 1985. The handover column is signed by his name. Date: April 1, 1961