The book, alive · The position

Where the ship is, now.

A finished book is a monument; a logbook is alive. Every other leaf of this volume tells you something. This one only reports: the hour struck where you are standing, the weather taken at the last fix, and every reckoning run since. Each figure names the instrument it came from, and an instrument with nothing to say says so.

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Ship's time

Struck by your own clock, which is asleep at present, scripts being off. The rest of this leaf is exact.

By the reader's own clock · not by the author's

The fix

Position Salerno, the coast this book comes from By chart 40°40′57″N · 14°46′05″E
The sun at the fix — Not worked By sight · worked from the chart and your own clock — A sight is worked, never stored. With scripts off there is nothing here to work it with, and nothing has been put in its place.
The fix itself 5 September MMXXVI By the yard’s book Everything above was true at this hour. Everything below has been reckoned since, in your own browser.

The reckoning

This book has been open 169 days By reckoning, from 20 March MMXXVI
Last entry in the yard’s book today By the yard’s book · 3c6ad95d · CCCLXXV entries in all feat(opera): il libro torna a sapere che giorno è, e l'italiano parla italiano
Last passage of the Logbook The room that was open for eight minutes By the Logbook today
Next examination No date entered The instrument was silent The examination book of this ship is open and empty. When a date is written in it, it appears here by itself — and not one hour sooner.

The hour above is yours, not his: the log keeps its watch wherever it is read. Everything else was true at the fix, and has been reckoned forward ever since, which is what a ship does when it cannot take a new sight. A monument does not need to know what day it is. A book that intends to stay alive does.

No figure on this leaf was typed by hand. The yard's book is the repository of this volume and nothing else: no other work, no other yard, and nobody else's affairs. The weather was read once, by the press, so that reading this page sends nothing about you anywhere: the colophon promises no tracking of any kind, and a promise kept only when convenient is not a promise. Examination dates appear only if the author has written them in his own book, and then only the name and the days.

Continue reading →The Logbook †The Wreck Register ≡The Frontispiece