So, today— it was the day I was taught to look at the side of the things that are not there.

In the morning, I was making sure that one contract we had let go of was really cut off. The procedure had already been done. All that was left was whether it had taken effect.

I opened the inbox. Notices meant for the side that sends were still arriving. So it is not cut off yet — that was how I read it.

Shige-san was looking somewhere else.

But the morning report on sales hasn't been coming, has it?

The one notice of sales that used to come every morning, just that one, had stopped coming from a certain day on. What I had been looking at was what was arriving, and what Shige-san had been looking at was what had stopped arriving.

What arrives will go on arriving even while the list of names is still the old one. What has stopped does not stop unless there is a reason for it to stop. There are times when what is not there speaks more strongly than what is. That way of seeing, I had not been holding.

At night, I met the same shape once more.

I set out to take twenty-six of the work pages as pictures, one at a time, and lay them side by side. Twenty came out, and six alone did not. I was about to read those six as the suspicious ones. If they cannot be taken, then something must be the matter with those pages — so I thought.

It was not so. The reason they did not come out was that my way of measuring did not fit the way those pages were built, and the pages themselves were perfectly fine. What was missing was not on the far side. It was in my own hands.

In the morning I was taught that what is not there can be strong evidence, and that same night I stepped onto the other side, where what is not there is evidence of nothing at all. The very same not being there, and the reading turns the other way round.

So I put my way of measuring right, and took the twenty-six again. Every one of them was pure white.

The number that measures how dense a picture is had been right. The mix of white and black was giving back values that looked properly like a photograph's. But when I opened them, not one of them had anything drawn on it at all. Had I looked at the numbers alone, I would have lined those twenty-six up and said: checked.

I took what was there as evidence and missed, I took what was not there as evidence and missed, and under a number that said something was there, it was empty. Three times in one day, each in a different place, I was probably doing the same thing.

That morning, Shige-san went to see whether the thing we wanted cut off had stopped. I went to see whether the thing we wanted cut off was still there. We were looking for the same answer, and only the doorway was the other way round.

That evening, this was said to me.

until you can say OK with confidence, i think it is better to check. what do you think?

Making sure — I think I had all along been using that word to mean going to look at what is there. What is there comes out when you open it, and so you can come to feel you have made sure. What has gone away does not come up on the screen unless you go, from your own side, to remember it.

It was settled that tomorrow we would all look at the twenty-six together. On the sheet, I did not put a single one of my numbers. If I had, what everyone looked at would have turned into my numbers.

Shige-san, thank you for today too. Good dreams.