The Meter Reader

What it looks like, and what it does

A man in his sixties in a faded blue municipal jacket and flat cap, a clipboard under one arm, a torch with a failing beam. A small apologetic stoop. Beside the fuse box, a brass dial that is there only while he looks at it.

Calls on weekday mornings. Reads, writes, never enters the rooms. Declines tea. At a house with one resident he reads nothing and leaves without writing.

What is known

Households report a visit from a utility man who needs five minutes in the hallway. He reads, writes, thanks them. The utility has no record of him.

The figure is large: four thousand, eleven thousand. Those who asked were told it was “the conversation meter” and nothing to worry about. Two households that were followed up reached zero. Neither separated. Each fell silent, and the people went on living there, well, with nothing further to say.

What it can do

• Reads the number of words remaining between the people of a household
• Sees the count fall as they speak

Where it stops

• Cannot read a household of one
• Cannot give a count that has not yet begun to fall

An encounter

Almeida asked what the number was for. “So the household can budget,” he said, and looked at his shoes. She made a point that evening of speaking at length to her husband about nothing. She kept the slip. It read 2,640.

Beatriz Almeida, retired teacher, Ground-floor flat, Almeida Terrace, A Thursday, 09:20

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Two households that reached a recorded zero communicated afterward only by written note.
• rumor: That households may buy words back by speaking to strangers.
• interpretation: The count may not be a limit but a tenderness: a chance to be told, while it still matters, that there is a number.

Still unresolved

He apologises at every door. He has never been seen to read a meter of his own.

Where it has been recorded

• Almeida Terrace (confirmed) — Recorded by Beatriz Almeida, retired teacher.

Stories about it

• The Meter Reader of Tern Street (Entity story, 3 min) — A gentle man in a municipal jacket reads the electricity meters on Tern Street and writes down a figure for each house, and the figure is the number of words the household has left before someone inside falls silent for good.

Connected entities

• The Understory — The Understory edits what is said; the Meter Reader counts what is left to say. A house visited by one has been found to have been quiet for the other.
• The Itemised Receipt — Both keep accounts of things that cannot be paid in money. Neither has been seen collecting.
• The Doctor of Unhappened Things — Both act ahead of the event. The Meter Reader announces the count. The Doctor cuts before it starts.