Gen. Per. 127

Gen. Per. stands for General Periodicals, and in it is a French title, Comptes Rendus that might be called Matters Submitted in English. We've been moving it a few days now. It's a long series. It's so long, in fact, that I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever finish it.

It could well be that the bookmoving team will grow old and grey with Comptes Rendus. We'll be moving it so long that future generations will conclude that we were created by a tidy-minded god for the express purpose of moving Comptes Rendus. In time, rivers will change their course and mountains will fall, and we will still be shelving Comptes Rendus.

I've heard it said that in strange ages even Death may die, but when it does I bet that our mortality will fall away from us like shadows, leaving bloodless automata singing worksongs in a language now forgotten. Any strong soul who stops to listen to our angular bubbling, however, may catch a fragment of meaning- a scant snatch of sense, repeated over and over: Comptes rendus, comptes rendus, comptes rendus.

At the end of this planet, of course, the sun will falter and choke on itself and swell up with wrath. We will look up at the blood-stained sky and see the baleful eye growing larger day by day, hour by hour. Knowing the end is near, we plead with our long-dead gods:

"But we haven't finished Gen Per yet!"