Drawer, Mensah, A. — drafts of a kindness
Three folded sheets in the bottom drawer of the censor's clerk A. Mensah's desk, deck 7, Halcyon Station, winter 2189. The drawer also contains a half-used pad of Halcyon Censor's Office — Notice to Sender of Withheld Correspondence forms (printed) and a black-graphite pencil sharpened by penknife. Each sheet is the back of an outgoing-mail manifest. All three are unsent.
sheet 1, day 56, winter — ink, neat hand:
Dear Madam Bar-Sela,
Further to your enquiries of recent date concerning correspondence directed to one A. Bar-Sela aboard the freight courier Marigold and subsequently the Tethys Relay Station, this Office regrets to advise that the addressee in question is recorded by the receiving station as not present on the current personnel roster of that station. It is the Office's understanding that this designation does not in itself confirm or deny
The sentence ends there. The remainder of the sheet is blank.
sheet 2, day 62, winter — ink, less neat, two false starts struck through:
[struck through] Dear Madam Bar-Sela, I am writing in my capacity as
[struck through] Madam — In response to your daily attendance at this window
Madam,
I have written to the Director at Tethys twice now in your behalf and on my own initiative. I cannot tell you what I think the silence means because I do not know what it means. I can tell you only that I have asked. I have
A horizontal line scored across the page. Beneath the line, in the same ink, struck through once:
[struck through] I am sorry.
sheet 3, day 79, winter — pencil, one sentence:
I read the one about your mother's chair.
— A. M.
Across the foot of sheet 3, in the same pencil hand:
Day 78 standing instruction came down. Do not return to sender. I do not know what I am keeping these for.