Department No. XII · Reunions & Failures
Claiming is permitted on Thursdays to anyone who can describe the item precisely without once saying mine. Four reunions and two failures are recorded.
1. Describe the item: colour, damage, contents, smell. 2. Do not say the word “mine.” The word ends the interview. 3. One Thursday per item; the Keeper decides by Friday. 4. Unclaimed after three years, the item keeps you, in the sense that it stays.
Reunion I
A woman described the thinning, the smell of bus, and the winter it was lost in. She did not say mine until the door, when it no longer mattered.
Record. Claimed February, eleven months after loss. The right remains at large.
Reunion II
A boy spelled K-E-V without prompting and named the cheese. The shortest hearing on record: four minutes, including handshakes.
Record. Claimed spring. Initials sufficed.
Reunion III
Recognised at twenty paces by a man who had been squinting for a year. The tape matched; the squinting stopped same day.
Record. Claimed autumn. Case still missing.
Reunion IV
Matched nibble for nibble against the claimant’s photograph of her grandmother’s work. Both parties pretended not to cry.
Record. Claimed winter. Fringe re-knotted by staff.
Failure I
Three persons claimed it on one Thursday. Each described it perfectly, as would anyone. Tickets for nothing were issued to all three.
Record. Declined. Forty like it in the stand.
Failure II
Five households proved, by trial, that it opens nothing of theirs. The sixth declined the trial, saying some mysteries should keep. The Keeper agreed, unusually.
Record. Declined. Still opens nothing in the building.