There was a warehouse, in that warehouse, with its grand 200-foot ceiling there was parked a truck, and in that truck were pencils, millions of them. Also in the room, there was a large desk, on that desk were boxes of pencils, freshly unloaded from the truck. The pencils were dull and had no erasers. The desk groaned slightly as more and more of the useless pencils were set upon it, they came in 10lb boxes, which came in cartons, which contained perfectly measured tonnes of pencils. A worker toiled behind the desk unloading every one of the 4,000 boxes in the delivery one by one by one by one. Gradually, the worker began to tire, sweat beading on his brow. As the worker toiled for longer and longer, he got more and more tired. As he became more and more tired, he became slower, making the work take longer. As the work took longer and longer, the worker toiled longer and longer, and so the process repeated. The worker, now aching from the work, got a call, which he answered and said something about how no, he did not want to buy used cars, then he hung up. After another hour or so of work, he got a call from another person, a quieter, more refined voice, which he put on speaker, the caller said that actually, he had not meant to send the pencils there. Then the worker was told to put the pencils back on the truck, and without so much as a grimace, he continued working. His hands tracing the same path through the air as when he began. Work by Ivar Kostowicz ’31 61
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