The Ministry of Later

The letter arrived on a day Elias had decided did not count.

There was work to finish, a bill to dispute, and a stain on the kitchen ceiling that had begun to resemble a small defeated country. Once these matters were settled, he would think about what he wanted. He had used this arrangement for years. It remained popular despite producing no visible results.

The envelope was cream. His name appeared behind a transparent window, correctly spelled, which made the contents harder to dismiss.

NOTICE OF PERSONAL REVIEW

Your application to begin living remains incomplete.

Please attend the Ministry of Later within seventy-two hours. Bring identification and evidence that your outstanding obligations have been satisfied.

If you cannot attend, continuation may be granted automatically.

Elias read the final sentence twice. Continuation sounded reassuring. It usually did.

He was fifty-four. He worked in the Ministry's Reconciliation Office, where he resolved discrepancies between what citizens had intended to do and what they reported having done. A man who intended to visit his brother every summer but visited once in eleven years might request that the single visit be reclassified as continuous intention. Elias could approve this if the appropriate boxes had been completed.

Before joining the Ministry, he had repaired things in hotels and apartment buildings. He knew how a loose fitting sounded through a wall, and which patch of new paint meant someone had stopped looking for a leak. At weekends he still looked after four flats for people who generally called while he was eating. The money helped. So did the fact that a door, once repaired, usually closed without requesting clarification.

There were paintings in his wardrobe and stories in a notebook used mostly for measurements. He had stopped mentioning them when people asked what he did. It made the answer shorter.

The Ministry occupied most of a stone building near the station. Its basement held the Office of Temporary Arrangements. That office had been there since the war.