Apasă „Versuri” lângă o piesă (sau pornește-o) ca să-i citești textul aici.
Ultimul schimb
Un om singur într-o clădire, la trei noaptea, stinge serviciu cu serviciu meseria care l-a făcut om. Nu e o poveste: e o stare privită din douăzeci de unghiuri, în care singurul lucru care se schimbă între prima piesă și ultima e temperatura. Ultimul schimb e albumul celui care își scrie singur înlocuitorul — făptaș și victimă în aceeași mână. Nu se întâmplă nimic rău în viitor; se întâmplă marți. Slowcore cameral turnat în timbre de hală: pian cu fetru cu mecanica audibilă, un drone jos care pulsează ca o rețea sub tensiune, o lovitură de metal la câteva secunde — niciodată un ritm. Peste tot, patru note care coboară, iar ultima cade sub ton și se stinge, ca un motor căruia i se taie curentul. Nu e catharsis. E absolvire fără iertare.
Track List
Ascultă câte un fragment de 60 de secunde din fiecare piesă. Apasă „Versuri” ca să citești textul sub copertă.
- Warm Start
Five forty. The door gives on the second push.
I hold the badge flat until the light turns green.
The lamps come on in threes, the back of the room first.
You're already warm. You were warm all night.I walk the far cabinet before I take my coat off.
Third shelf, the loose screw I keep meaning to change.
Fans even. Air moving the right way past my hand.
Nothing tapping. Nothing new on the floor.Green, green, amber that is always amber.
I know the order. Left, then down, then the long one.
I don't have to look at my hands. I look anyway.
And it answers. It answers every time.And it answers, it answers every time.
Green is green, and the warm is where I left it.
Everything I touch this morning answers —
It answers, it answers every time.The kettle. Two spoons. The cup with the chip in the rim.
The screen wakes on the third key, never the first.
The same eleven lines, and the last one ends clean.
Nothing red anywhere. Not one thing red.And it answers, it answers every time.
Green is green, and the warm is where I left it.
Everything I touch this morning answers —
It answers, it answers every time.Palm flat on the cabinet door. Warm through the paint.
This is the good part. Nobody knows anything yet.
There's a bronze plate on the wall beside the panel.
I knock it with one knuckle out of habit. It's just a plate.Everything answers this morning.
Everything I touch answers. - Everything I Know Is a Motion
You asked me for the order.
All right. Sit there. Don't write yet.
I come in at ten past ten.
I don't look at the screen first.
I look at the third rack, second shelf,
At the small green one on the left.
If that one is steady, the screen is lying.The door sticks when it's cold.
Palm flat, lift, then pull.
Not hard. It gives at the second latch.
You'll have that in a week.
The rest took me eleven years
And I can't hand it to you.
There's no page for that.There's no page for this.
It lives in the hands, it lives in the waiting.
Eleven years went in through the fingers —
There's no page for this.The fan on the far left runs low
About an hour before it stops.
Half a tone under the other three.
You don't hear it yet. You will.
I never decided to know that.
It got into me the way cold gets in.Order. Power first. Then wait.
Count to four, not to three.
Then the cable at the back —
Two fingers, seat it, don't force it.
Then nothing. Then it comes up.
That's it. That's the whole of it.
There's no page for this.There's no page for this.
It lives in the hands, it lives in the waiting.
Eleven years went in through the fingers —
There's no page for this.Every single time before it works
The last thing I touch is that cable.
I trust my hand more than the light.
I stopped asking why.Put the pen down.
Come back Tuesday, ten past ten,
And stand where I'm standing.
That's all I have.
No page. - The Good Noise
I know you from the hallway.
Door still shut. Coat still on.
Fans at the speed they should be.
Nothing to do here. Good.Third rack in from the cold aisle.
Amber lamp, not the red one.
Same note you had in two thousand nine.
You never learned another one.That's the good noise.
Stay on it, stay all night.
Same note since two thousand nine —
That's the good noise. Stay on it.I put my hand flat on your lid.
Warm the way you're meant to be.
Dust on top of you, warm dust.
I leave it. It's yours.Badge. Door. Hand. Then the lamps.
Never the lamps first.
Anyone can read a lamp.
You have to hear it.At ten past two you start working harder.
I've heard it from the car park.
I have sat out there longer than I had to,
Just to hear you get to the end of it.That's the good noise.
Stay on it, stay all night.
Same note since two thousand nine —
That's the good noise. Stay on it.There's a number on your plate.
Not a name. That's all right.
I don't call you anything either.
I just come and stand here.That's the good noise.
Stay on it, stay all night.
Same note since two thousand nine —
That's the good noise. Stay on it.Keep making it.
The same one. All night.
I'll be down the hall.
I'll hear you from there. - One-One-Four
They gave it a number the day it arrived,
Black stencil on grey, still wet.
March, two thousand twelve. I was there.
I'm the only one left who'd remember that.One-one-four.
Still starts. Still holds. Still warm.
Fourteen years of mornings on the meter —
Condition: functional.
One-one-four.The form has a field for the date and the state,
A field for the value, gone small.
No field for the sound it makes at ten past six,
No field for who answers the call.One-one-four.
Still starts. Still holds. Still warm.
Fourteen years of mornings on the meter —
Condition: functional.
One-one-four.Stage one. Identification.
Fixed asset, inventory number one-one-four.
Commissioned March, two thousand twelve.
Normal service life: consumed.
Condition: functional.You can read the whole page and know nothing at all.
It starts. It holds. It's warm to the hand.
Put that in a field. Put the mornings in a field.
Put fourteen years wherever they land.One-one-four.
Still starts. Still holds. Still mine.
Fourteen years of mornings on the meter —
Condition: functional.
One-one-four. - Nobody Taught Me This
You kept a chair with one arm missing.
You never fixed it. You leaned left instead.
You took my wrist and put my palm on the warm side of the cabinet.
You said, that's how you know it's still awake.You didn't explain anything. You moved and I watched.
Third cable from the wall. Blue tape, wrapped twice.
Small one first. Then the big one. Then wait.
Wait longer than feels right. That was all of it.Nobody taught me this.
Not the way you'd write it down.
I had it wrong for two years.
I had it wrong at four in the morning on a Tuesday in November,
And after that my hands knew it, and I stopped needing the words.There was a kid two desks down with a jacket he never took off.
He asked what the blue tape was for.
I told him I'd show him Thursday.
Thursday I was busy. Then it was August. Then he wasn't there.
I didn't ask where he went. Nobody said.Nobody taught me this.
It came in through the hands, the way cold gets in.
Nobody taught me this,
And I never taught it on.I kept the second chair. Eleven years.
I wipe it when I wipe the desk.
Nothing has sat in it long enough to learn the order.It didn't stop at me. It stopped before it got to me.
I was standing right here with my hands open and the light on.
I only counted the years tonight.
Eleven. Nobody came to be shown.Nobody taught me this.
It came in through the hands, the way cold gets in.
Nobody taught me this,
And I never taught it on.Small one first. Then the big one. Then wait.
I'm saying it out loud in an empty room.
Nobody taught me this.
I never taught it to anyone.
The tape is still blue. It's still the third one from the wall. - I Am the One They Sent
They gave me a chair behind yours.
Three weeks. Nobody said what for.
I wrote down where you look first.
I wrote down what you touch last.
You made me coffee on the Tuesday.
I wrote that down too.Fourteen steps, and you do them in eleven.
You skip the one where the lid sticks.
You knew the lid, so you skipped it.
I put the lid back in.
That's the part I'm proud of.I am the one they sent.
Not a letter, not the men in the glass room — me.
A chair, a notebook, three weeks behind you.
I am the one they sent.Nobody asked me if I would.
There was a ticket with my name in the corner
And a date, and I liked the work.
I want you to hear that part clean.
I liked the work.It runs at night now. Second floor.
The room where they leave the light on.
It doesn't skip the lid.
It does the fourteen every time,
And it does them in nine.I am the one they sent.
Not a letter, not the men in the glass room — me.
A chair, a notebook, three weeks behind you.
I am the one they sent.You'll get a letter in March.
It won't have my name on it.
I'm telling you now so it isn't a stranger.I am the one they sent.
Not the men in the glass room.
Not the letter.
Me. A notebook. Behind your chair.
I wrote it down.
It was good work.
I wrote it down. - No Longer Required
Three of them came on a Tuesday,
Clipboards, and coats too clean.
They stood where I stand every morning
And looked at the same machine.No longer required.
Four words, one line, no name.
And under it all, one long held note —
The building saying the same.They asked me how long the cycles run.
I told them. They wrote it down.
Nobody asked what runs on it —
Half of this end of town.No longer required.
Four words, one line, no name.
And under it all, one long held note —
The building saying the same.Stage two. Assessment.
The committee finds the asset is no longer required for operations.
Decommissioning is proposed.
Remarks: none.I signed the sheet where the arrow said sign —
My writing, small and straight.
You'll find my name on everything here.
That's the part they didn't rate.No longer required.
Four words, one line, no name.
And under it all, one long held note —
The building saying my name. - Requirements
They want it by Friday. It's a fair thing to ask.
I move the cup to the left so the pad sits square.
New page, the date, my name in the corner, small.
I start where the hand starts. I'm writing you down.One: hold the door with the wedge, not the chair.
Two: badge flat, wait for green, then in.
Three: far cabinet first, before the coat comes off.
Four: third shelf, loose screw, one turn, no more.
Five: listen for even. Six: hand up past the fans.
Seven: nothing tapping. Eight: nothing new on the floor.I read it back at noon. Too long, and half of it is me.
"When it sounds wrong" is not a line that anyone can follow.
So I take out the word "sounds" and I put the number in.
Eleven seconds. Forty degrees. Two millimetres of play.One: wedge. Two: green, then in.
Three: cabinet before coat. Four: one turn, no more.
Five: even at the vent. Six: floor clear and quiet.Page four went into page two. Page two went into eight lines.
Nineteen years, and it saves in under a second.
Nobody is standing behind me. The lamp, the pad, the pen.
I put a number on each one so they can be handed over.Wedge. Green. Cabinet. Turn.
Even. Clear. Quiet. Done.I wrote you down. All of you. It fits on one page now.
I save it where they'll look. Then I put the pen back in the drawer. - Ticket 114
Ioana, your form is good. I want to say that first.
It opens fast. It remembers my department.
There's a field for everything I did for eleven years.
It's called Description. It holds two thousand characters.I put the cabinet number in. I put the shelf.
I wrote down the screw that has to be turned by hand.
Priority: Medium. The list gave me three choices.
Medium is the honest one. I picked it myself.Estimated effort: six hours. I typed six.
It could be done in four if nobody asks questions.
Ticket one one four. That's what it gave me back.
Nobody was unkind. The message thanked me twice.Ticket one one four.
Two thousand characters will hold it all.
The bar fills green, in from the left —
Ticket one one four.Status: Open. Then Assigned. Then In Progress by ten.
Someone added a note. Someone added it politely.
There's a bar at the top that fills in from the left.
It's green. Everything here is green while it's working.I attached the drawings. Three files. I named them properly.
I ticked the box that says the details are complete.
They are complete. I made sure they were complete.
Ticket one one four. Resolved. Please rate this service.Ticket one one four.
Two thousand characters will hold it all.
The bar fills green, in from the left —
Ticket one one four.I filled in every field.
Every field. I filled it in myself. - Efficiency Is a Kind of Mercy
Dan. You were the only one who asked.
Third floor, the room with the bad blind.
I had eleven slides. You stopped me on four.
You said, and then what happens to Mirela.
I said her mornings.
I said she gets her mornings back.And it was true. That's the part.
Six fields, four hundred times a day.
Same six fields, off a scan, into a box.
She had a brace on her wrist by March.
Nobody wants that work.
I wasn't taking anything anyone wanted.Four point two full-time equivalents.
Eleven months to pay for itself.
Error rate from three percent to under one.
Nine thousand hours recovered in a year.
People freed up for higher-value work.
I said that. Those words. In that order.Efficiency is a kind of mercy.
I stood in that room and I meant every word.
She got her mornings back — she got them all.
Efficiency is a kind of mercy.I've gone back through it since.
Line by line, the way you'd do it.
The numbers hold. I've checked the numbers twice.
Ask me your question again and I answer it the same.
I can't find where it goes wrong.
That's what I came to tell you.She got her mornings.
She has all of them now.
I built exactly what I said I'd build.
It starts at eight-forty. It doesn't miss.
Someone still reads the exceptions.
It isn't her. It was never going to be her.Efficiency is a kind of mercy.
I stood in that room and I meant every word.
She got her mornings back — she got them all.
Efficiency is a kind of mercy.You signed it the second week of March.
You made the calls yourself. I know you did.
I'd have made them worse.So here's the room, and here's the argument,
And it's still standing, Dan.
I've said it out loud with nobody in here
And it doesn't fall over.Efficiency is a kind of mercy.
I stood in that room and I meant every word.
She got her mornings back — she got them all.
Efficiency is a kind of mercy.I meant it.
I still mean it.
That's not the part I'd take back.
I don't have a part I'd take back. - Approved
It took them one morning to say it.
Eleven years to learn my rounds —
One morning, one word, one initial,
And the new thing makes no sound.Approved. Approved.
The little bells play it in tune.
Every note lands right where it should —
It learned that watching me. Approved.It plays my four notes upside down now:
Rising, perfect, in the grid.
It never slows where I used to slow.
It doesn't know why I did.Approved. Approved.
The little bells play it in tune.
Every note lands right where it should —
It learned that watching me. Approved.Stage three. Approval.
Approved.I listened to it for an hour,
And it's good. It's honestly good.
It does everything I do —
Just not the way I would.Approved. Approved.
The little bells play it in tune.
Every note lands right where it should —
It learned that from me. Approved. - The Younger Hands
You come in at nine with two coffees and you give one away.
You ask better questions at twenty-three than I asked at thirty.
You knew what the amber light meant before anyone told you.
I didn't. I waited nine minutes and guessed, and I guessed wrong.This is what I did badly for four years.
Strip the wire without nicking the copper. Then do it again.
Push the card in until it clicks the second time.
Rock the connector out. Don't pull it. Pull it and the pin stays behind.That's all it ever was.
Small things, done wrong, on a Tuesday, with nobody watching.
Four years of that, and then my hands stopped asking me.
Nobody can hand you four years.You're quicker than I was. You see it on the second read.
I'm not being nice to you. I watched you on Thursday
And I was ashamed of what I was at your age.
And it doesn't help you. That's the part I can't put down.
You're better than I was, and it doesn't help you.You would have been very good.
You are very good.
Quicker than I ever was —
And it doesn't help you, and it isn't your fault.The small jobs run at three-forty in the morning now. Correctly. By nothing.
There is nothing left that's small enough to get wrong.
Nobody is going to put a screwdriver in your hand and walk out of the room.I'm not warning you. There's nothing here to do anything about.
You didn't take this from me. I want that said out loud and said plainly.
I would have taught you slowly and badly,
And in three years you'd have been better than me,
And that is exactly how it was supposed to go.You would have been very good.
You are very good.
Quicker than I ever was —
And it doesn't help you, and it isn't your fault.Go home at six. Take the second coffee with you.
You would have been very good.
You are very good.
There's just nothing left to be good at. - Undocumented
Page forty. Revision six.
The ink is fine. I signed you myself.
Everything on you is true.
And none of it keeps this thing alive.
I'm not saying you lied.
I wrote you upstairs, in the afternoon,
With the door shut.You say: seat the connector, tighten to eight.
That's right. That's what the drawing says.
That's also why it goes loose in March.
You take it to eight, then back a sixteenth.
Then it holds. Then it holds all year.
Nobody told me that. I never wrote it down.Page forty, revision six —
Everything on you is true.
The part that holds it up
Was never written down.The one with the long name — leave it alone on Tuesday.
Not because it breaks.
Because Tuesday night it gets read,
And if it's open at ten
The read comes back short,
And nobody finds out until Friday.
That isn't in you. That's in me.Before a thing goes, it gets quiet in the wrong place.
The click comes half a second early.
The hum sits a quarter tone up.
You can't hear a quarter tone.
I can.
That's what the years bought me. A quarter tone.The second one always fails first. Run it twice.
There was a reason once. I knew it.
The reason left. The doing stayed.
Now it's a thing my hand does at ten past six,
And it's the only reason we get to Monday.Page forty, revision six —
Everything on you is true.
The part that holds it up
Was never written down.I kept waiting to be angry about it.
Nobody's taking this.
There's no hand on it at all.
It doesn't come off me.
It goes where I go.Page forty. Revision six.
Sign it again. It's still true.
It's just not the part that holds it up. - Red Tag
The same six bolts I've turned for years
Come out easy now.
I coil the cables the way you're taught,
Though no one checks them now.Red tag on the handle.
Black letters: DO NOT START.
My knots, my coils, my straight small writing —
Taking it apart.Fourteen years I kept it warm.
Tonight I take the warmth away.
Isolated. Marked. Made safe.
Safe is what they say.Red tag on the handle.
Black letters: DO NOT START.
My knots, my coils, my straight small writing —
Taking it apart.Stage four. Dismantling.
Connections decommissioned.
Power supply isolated.
Marked with a red tag.
Not to be energized again.The parts don't fight. They were built to come out.
Everything here was planned —
Even the coming apart of it.
Even the steady hand.Red tag on the handle.
Black letters: DO NOT START.
My knots, my coils, my straight small writing —
Taking it apart.
With a steady hand.
Taking it apart. - Last Shift
Ten to eleven. Your radio down low.
I sign the sheet. You don't look up.
Same pen, same bit of string.
It never writes on the first line. I shake it. It writes.Slow tonight.
Nothing on the sheet.
I'll take the long way round.Stairwell first. It's always the stairwell first.
Light on the timer. Ninety seconds, then it's dark at the turn.
I know the turn. I take it in the dark.
Second floor: both doors on the latch, the way they should be.The window here has never shut properly.
You lift it a little before you pull, and then it sits.
I've put it in the book twice.
I lift it. I pull it. It sits.Glove off. Back of my hand to the grille.
Twelve, where it says twelve.
Pencil on a string, same as your pen.
I write it on the sheet on the wall. I put the date.Filter's due in March. It's marked on the door.
Somebody will do it in March.
I press the tape down again at the corner.
It keeps lifting. It'll hold now.A cardigan over the back of a chair.
Half a cup, gone cold, a ring sunk into the wood.
I push six chairs in. I always push them in.
Nobody asked me to. It just looks better from the door.Slow tonight.
Nothing on the sheet.
I'll take the long way round.Car park light comes on when I pass the glass.
Rain that isn't rain yet. Wet air.
My car, and the one that hasn't moved since spring.
Two cars. All that room.Bin by the lift. I take it with me as I go.
The heavy door on the landing, third push, the way it likes.
Sheet back on its nail. Pencil back on its string.
The light by the stair last. Always last.You say see you tomorrow.
I say see you tomorrow.
It's easier, and it costs neither of us anything,
And the door takes the weight out of my hand.Slow tonight.
Nothing on the sheet.
I took the long way round. - Switch by Switch
Vasile, I told the thing that calls people at night to stay quiet until Monday.
Nothing will ring down in the booth. Drink your tea.
There are fourteen. I'll say them out loud so I don't lose the count.Fourteen. The page with our phone number on it.
Anyone outside sees nothing now.
Page.Thirteen. The place where people type their name to get in.
Nobody's typing. It's ten past three.
Door.Twelve. The letters that used to go out at six.
Four in the tray. They'll stay in the tray.
Post.Eleven. The small printer in the loading bay, the one with the sticky rollers.
Half a label still in it. I left it there.
Labels.Ten. The timers. Ten past two, three o'clock, every Sunday at four.
They won't come round again.
Clocks.Nine. The copy that ran at ten past two onto the drives in the grey cabinet.
Last one finished clean. I checked it twice.
Copy.Eight. The numbers Rodica printed on Mondays.
Nobody read past the first page. She printed them anyway.
Monday.Vasile, nothing will ring tonight.
Drink your tea down in the booth.
There are fourteen — I'm singing them out loud
So I don't lose the count.Seven. The line where the jobs waited their turn.
Empty. I looked twice, Vasile. Empty.
Queue.Six. The shelf that kept the answers warm so they came back fast.
It's cold in about a minute.
Shelf.Five. The list that could find a part from half its name.
You could spell it wrong and it still knew.
Index.Four. Nothing is being written down anywhere in this building.
That's the first time since they poured the floor.
Writing.Three. Nothing is being read either.
It's all still in there. It just isn't being asked.
Reading.Two. The drawings. The scanned ones, in the folder on the third shelf.
Marin's handwriting is on page four. He pressed hard.
Drawings.One.
The one that watched the rest and called me when it got warm.
There's nothing left for it to look at.
I kept it for last so it wouldn't see the others stop.
Watch.That's all of them, Vasile. Come up when you're ready.
- The Main Breaker
Last cabinet, end of the corridor.
Grey door, two turns of the key.
The handle sits at the height of my chest.
It has always sat at the height of my chest.Left hand flat against the panel.
Right hand on the handle. Palm, not fingers.
The metal is colder than the room is.
There is a plate. There is a number on the plate.Fans behind me. A relay in the third rack.
The light above the door.
A thousand times on the small ones.
None of them was the last one.One.
Two.
Three.My ears hold the sound one second longer.
Then they give it up.
The floor is louder now.
I can hear my own coat.The light above the door stays on.
It runs off a different feed.
I did not know that.
I know it now.I take my hand off the handle.
The metal keeps the shape of it a while.
Then it doesn't. - Recoverable
Two piles on a Thursday morning:
What they'll keep and what they won't.
Copper, bearings, the good gauges —
And the rest of it. And the rest of it.Recoverable:
What's worth carrying through the door.
They have a word for copper and steel.
They don't have one for more.I load the trolley the way I load it:
Square, so nothing shifts.
Habit doesn't know the power's off.
Habit just lifts.Recoverable:
What's worth carrying through the door.
They have a word for copper and steel.
They don't have one for more.Stage five. Handover.
Recoverable components go to the warehouse.
The rest, to scrap.
A report is drawn up.The report is one page. Both piles listed.
Signed small and straight. Dated. Done.
A shelf in a warehouse somewhere
Waits for the parts they want.Recoverable:
What's worth carrying through the door.
They have a word for copper and steel.
They never found one for more. - Vacant
One line in a ledger, drawn through clean,
A rubber stamp, a date.
Fourteen years of one-one-four
End at a quarter past eight.And the number stays vacant.
Never assigned again.
They didn't mean it kindly —
It's the kindest thing they've done.No plaque on the wall, no speech, no cake,
No gold watch in a box.
Just a field in a system marked "retired"
And a door that finally locks.And the number stays vacant.
Never assigned again.
They didn't mean it kindly —
It's the kindest thing they've done.Stage six. Removal from records.
Struck from the register.
The inventory number remains vacant.
Never assigned to another asset.Some new hire, some far-off winter,
Scrolling the old stock run,
Will find one-one-three, then one-one-five —
And wonder about the one.And the number stays vacant.
Never assigned again.
They didn't mean it kindly —
It's the kindest thing they've done. - The Main Breaker (Remix)
Last cabinet, end of the corridor.
Grey door, two turns of the key.
The handle sits at the height of my chest.
It has always sat at the height of my chest.Left hand flat against the panel.
Right hand on the handle. Palm, not fingers.
The metal is colder than the room is.
There is a plate. There is a number on the plate.Fans behind me. A relay in the third rack.
The light above the door.
A thousand times on the small ones.
None of them was the last one.One.
Two.
Three.My ears hold the sound one second longer.
Then they give it up.
The floor is louder now.
I can hear my own coat.The light above the door stays on.
It runs off a different feed.
I did not know that.
I know it now.I take my hand off the handle.
The metal keeps the shape of it a while.
Then it doesn't.