THE ROUNDS REDUX
In Which Elias Encounters the Eyewitness, the Twitch, and the Judgement of the Clipboard
These are the serialized accounts for the novella, Working Terms. All tasks are mandatory. All emotions are optional. Welcome to your role in the system.
FROM THE LAST → Before Elias Rigg was cleared to touch the living, he thought hospitals ran on urgency. Instead, Markworth was a maze of mislabeled floors, haunted supply closets, and staff who moved like overused metaphors—functioning, speaking, but soul-fogged. He smiled, nodded, complied, until one day he hid in a linen closet, scribbled “The map is not the territory; here, the map is a trap” on a discharge form, tucked it in his sock, and then he went to check on Mr. Harrow.
Hey! Here’s a button for the index!
The incident, though no one dared call it such aloud, preferring softer euphemisms like “chart discrepancy” or “the situation in 214B,” had not yet reached the stage of capital letters. There had been no MEETING. No MEMO. But there had been a glance, specifically, a glance from Ms. Trapp.
To be clear, Elias had not previously noticed Ms. Morleen Trapp.
She was, until now, what might be called ambient staff—a presence too low in volume and too high in credentials to interact with directly. She was one of those phantoms who drifted through double doors with clipboards and severe shoes, charting things that had already happened to make them Official.
But now she was in the breakroom. And she was not blinking.
This, Elias thought, might be the beginning of something.
Ms. Morleen Trapp did not sit. She stood near the microwave like a bird that had once been human but never quite adapted to plumage. She held a clipboard so tightly it was rumored the word Policy had permanently embossed itself into her palm. Her eyes moved as if tracking a bee no one else could see.
The twitch began after his third smile.
Elias had mistakenly smiled once, reflexively, unthinkingly, the way one might salute a passing dog. Her left eyelid contracted so sharply it seemed to momentarily deflect light.
Then she cleared her throat, which sounded like a stapler being threatened.
“You’re … Rigg,” she said. Not a question.
“Yes,” Elias said, in a tone that implied apology. “I believe so.”
She nodded once, and the twitch happened again, smaller this time, like a shiver in semaphore. Then she consulted her clipboard, which bore no paper but a laminated form titled EMERGING PERFORMANCE MOMENTS: PEER-ADJACENT LEARNING EDITION.
“Did you … attend to 214B this morning?” she asked, in the tone of someone trying to determine whether a bug on her plate is decorative or real.
“I did,” said Elias, brightly. “I attend to all my rooms. Attendantishly. As in, I attend.”
The twitch again. This time it migrated from eye to shoulder, shoulder to clipboard, clipboard to silence.
“Chart shows … a lapse.”
Elias nodded thoughtfully, as though she had just remarked on a seasonal flu trend.
“Yes. It appears there was a … structural ambiguity.”
“A what?”
He leaned forward slightly. “A gap. A pause in data flow. An unscheduled omission.” (He’d recently been reading corporate emails in the bathroom for phrasing practice.)
She blinked twice. This, it turned out, was worse than the twitch. It was as if her face was rebooting.
“I need,” she said, very carefully, “a Narrative Reconciliation.”
Elias had never heard those two words in sequence. They sounded dangerous. Possibly theological.
“I can provide a … robustly fictionalized timeline, if that helps,” he offered.
She did not laugh. But her nostrils flared in a manner that implied attempting to suppress either laughter or a small fire.
“Three sentences,” she said. “Typed. Initialed. By lunch.”
“Of course.”
“And Rigg?”
“Yes?”
“No more stable temps of 98.6.”
The twitch returned with ceremonial precision.
Back at the workstation, Elias opened a blank note and began typing:
Mr. Harrow was found without vitals at 11:06 by licensed staff. I cannot confirm or deny prior status due to chart ambiguity and monitor inactivity. Recommend system review and further training for all involved parties.
—E.R.
He paused. Reread. Deleted all involved parties. Replaced it with:
... those relevant to the situation as applicable under provisional guidance.
He smiled at his cleverness.
From down the hall, Morleen Trapp shuddered.
UP NEXT → THE EDUCATION OF ELIAS RIGG, CONTINUED: In Which Elias Quietly Begins to Chart Everything That Cannot Be Measured
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