Where are you if we can't find proof of your existence as civil servant? Not even an index card in a filing cabinet, not one yellowing record with nearly unreadable letters stuck in a box, somewhere in the basement of the City Hall? The clerks say it's because it was the time before digitization, before computerized filing; when sheaves of paper were tied with twine or organized with rubber bands: A-E under a moldy pipe, F-J by the water heater. All the men who knew you or were your friends are dead now too—what is death if not the last repository, safety deposit box without a key, without a combination; held inside some depthless vault we can't imagine?