Always Afternoon · the jetty
The Office of Departures
Open at the end of the afternoon
It is a hut of dressed stone about the size of a shed, with a shutter, a brass bell whose clapper has been removed and set on the sill beside it, and a shelf of forms that never runs out. There has never been anybody behind the window. The forms are excellent. Whoever printed them believed in this completely.
You do not need this office to leave. Nobody ever has. The path down to the beach is not guarded, the boat is where you left it, and you can go now, from this sentence, without filing anything.
This office exists because leaving felt like the sort of thing that ought to have a procedure, and once there was a procedure it was easier to be partway through it than to go.
Form D/1 — Application to Depart
Complete in one line. Applications are processed at the end of the afternoon.
The second number has never changed. It is not a trick and nothing is stopping anyone; the office simply has no part in it. People who leave do not come back to tell the office.
Application D/1-0005 — mounted on the wall
Bordeom
Filed 29 July 2026. Preferred method of departure: immediately. The first reason anybody ever gave this office for wanting to leave the island, spelled exactly the way it was written. It has been copied onto the wall because first things get mounted, and because the office is not in a position to correct anyone. It has not been processed.
Reasons on file
Opening the ledger…