Story - The Error That Stays

(variation: dark / subtle)

The woman had been stamping passports at the border for eleven years. The border was between two countries that had once been the same country. The border was new. The woman was not new. She had been there before the border existed, when the road went through and the only thing between the two countries was a line on a map that no one checked. Now there was a glass window and a stamp and a word. The word was "Welcome." She said it to every person who passed. She said it plainly, without warmth, without coldness, the word doing its work.

The border was in a corridor - not a building but a passage between two walls, one side painted the colour of the country behind and one side painted the colour of the country ahead. The paint was peeling where the two colours met. The seam was the actual border. The window was in the seam. The woman sat in the seam. She was neither here nor there. The corridor was lit by a strip light that buzzed and flickered and had been flickering for eleven years.

There was a man who came to the window every Tuesday. He was not crossing. He worked in the café on the other side of the glass. He brought her coffee at 10:15, set it on the ledge, and went back. She never asked his name. He never offered it. The coffee was black, no sugar, in a white cup with a chip on the handle. She drank it. The cup sat on her desk until 5:00, when she set it on the ledge for him to collect.

One Tuesday in October she said "thee" instead of "you." Not to the man. To a traveller. The traveller was an old woman with a blue passport and a clear face. The woman at the border looked at the passport and said, "Welcome. Thee may proceed." The old woman didn't notice. The old woman walked through. The word sat in the air. Thee. Her mother said "thee." Her mother was dead. The word had been gone for twenty years and it came back from the dead in the seam between two countries, in a mouth that was not her mother's mouth.

She did not correct it. There was no one to correct it to. The old woman was gone - through the border, into the other country, a country the woman at the border had never been to and could not enter. The word stayed in the air and then the strip light flickered and the air moved and the word was gone. But the mouth remembered.

The next Tuesday the man brought the coffee. She said, "Thank thee." She said it before she knew she was going to say it. The man looked at her. It was the first time he had looked at her. He had a face that was used to not being looked at. He looked at her and she looked at him and the word was between them like a crack in the seam.

He didn't say anything. He went back to the café. She stamped fourteen passports that day. She said "Welcome" to each person. She did not say "thee." She held the word in her teeth. The word was not hers. It was her mother's. Her mother was dead and the word came from the dead and it was in her living mouth and it didn't belong there. That was the error. Not the wrong word. The wrong mouth.

November. The chip on the cup handle was getting bigger. She could feel it under her thumb each time she picked it up. The chip was the thing she knew about the cup. The cup was white and it had a chip and the chip was where her thumb went. She had started to put her thumb on the chip the way you put your hand on a railing. Not for the cup. For the grip. But the grip was on a cup that was brought by a man she didn't know, in a corridor she couldn't leave, between two countries she couldn't enter.

One Tuesday she said "thee" again. To the man. Not "Thank thee." Just "thee." He was setting the coffee on the ledge and she said it, one word, no sentence around it. He stopped. His hand was still on the cup. She could see his hand. It was a hand that had been washing cups for years. It was a hand that knew the weight of a cup.

He said, "What?"

She said, "Nothing."

He went back to the café. The seam between the two countries was empty. The strip light flickered.

She drank the coffee. The chip was bigger. She put her thumb on it. She thought: what am I, if the word I speak is not the word I chose? What am I, if my mother's word is in my mouth and my mouth is in the seam and the seam is the border and the border is the role and the role is not me? She stamped a passport. The stamp said the country's name. The name was not her name. She was the one who said the name. She was the role that said the name. The person inside the role was the one who said "thee" and couldn't stop.

December. The border was quieter. Fewer people crossing. The two countries were settling into their separateness and the people who were going to leave had left. The ones who stayed didn't cross. The woman at the border had time. She looked at the glass between her window and the café. The glass had a smudge where the cup had been set down and picked up ten thousand times. The smudge was the record of the cups. She could see it when the light was right. The light was right at 10:15, when he set the cup down.

She said "thee" to every traveller that month. She couldn't stop it. The word came out instead of "you" and she let it come. The travellers didn't notice. They heard "Welcome" and walked through. The word was invisible to everyone but her. But the word was changing her. Each time she said it, the role thinned. The stamp was hers but the word was not. The word was the crack in the wall of the role. The crack was getting bigger.

January. He brought the coffee. She said, "Thee." He said, "I know." She said, "I can't stop." He said, "I know." He went back to the café. She stamped passports. The chip on the cup was now a ridge. Her thumb had worn it open. The chip was the shape of her thumb. The error was the shape of the word. Both of them stayed. She thought: if the role fills the room and the person is the crack, then what am I when the crack fills the room? What am I when the error is all that's left of me?

February. He stopped bringing the coffee. Not suddenly. He brought it on Tuesday and then he didn't bring it on Tuesday and then he brought it on Wednesday and then he didn't bring it on Wednesday. The absence was not a decision. The absence was a drift. The smudge on the glass was still there. The cup was not there. The ledge was empty. The seam was empty. She was alone in it.

She said "thee" to the empty ledge. There was no one to hear it. The word sat on the glass where the smudge was. It stayed. She said it again. She said it to the seam. She said it to the two countries. She said it to the strip light. She said it to the paint where it was peeling. The word was the only thing in the corridor that was hers. The stamp was the country's. The window was the border's. The chair was the corridor's. The word was hers, and it was the wrong word, and it was the only word she had.

March. She stamped passports. She said "Welcome." She did not say "thee." The word was gone. She could feel it gone the way you feel a tooth gone. The space where it was. The tongue goes to the space. She was the role again. The stamp. The word. The window. The seam. The person who had said "thee" was gone. The error stayed - not the word, but the shape of the word in her mouth. The shape of the wrong word that had been hers for four months and was gone now and left only the shape. The shape was the crack in the role. The crack stayed. The role continued. She continued. The strip light flickered. The border held. The two countries held. The seam held. Everything held except the person inside the role, who was the crack, and the crack was the error, and the error stayed.