legends · 4 min read ·
Night Porter's Log
A night porter's log tracks desk lamps that appear on empty floors, one floor at a time.
**Calder Tower — Security & Porter's Log (Night Shift, Porter: Frank Dower)**
*Tower: 22 floors, 1 reception, 2 basement levels. Check lights, doors, alarms every two hours.*
· · ·
**3 Sept · 22:00.** Walked all floors. All offices dark, doors locked. Floor 14 cleaner finishing. Cleaner left 22:25. Alarm set.
**3 Sept · 00:00.** Round. All dark. All locked.
**3 Sept · 02:00.** Round. All dark. All locked.
**3 Sept · 04:00.** Round. All dark. All locked. Quiet night.
· · ·
**17 Sept · 23:58.** Floor 9, light on in the open-plan office, east side. One desk lamp. Switched off. Locked.
**18 Sept · 23:58.** Floor 9, east side, desk lamp on. Switched off. The desk is in the corner, by the window. The lamp is an old brass one that doesn't belong to the firm that rents the floor. I looked on the asset register. No lamp.
**19 Sept · 23:58.** Same lamp. Same desk. Removed the bulb.
· · ·
**22 Sept · 23:58.** The lamp is lit. No bulb in it. I touched the shade. Warm. The room smells of a candle that has just been put out.
**Facilities memo (24 Sept):** *Porter reports an unauthorised lamp on Floor 9. Please remove it.*
**Porter's note (25 Sept):** Lamp removed. I took it down to the basement store, wrapped it in a dust sheet, and locked it in the cage.
**25 Sept · 23:58.** Floor 9. The lamp is lit. On the desk. It is on. I went down to the cage and unlocked it. The dust sheet is folded on the shelf. The cage is empty.
· · ·
**1 Oct · 23:58.** I have stopped switching it off. The lamp burns. The light is good. Under it, on the desk, there is now a blotter, and a pen, and a pile of papers in a tray. The papers are blank. I touched them with one finger and left a smudge.
**3 Oct · 23:58.** Floor 9. Two lamps now. The second has appeared on the desk behind the first. Same make. Same brass. I walked the floor. Every desk on the east side now has a small light on it, and a pen, and a pile of papers. I counted fourteen.
The desks were not like this at 22:00 when I locked up.
· · ·
**Facilities memo (7 Oct)**
To: F. Dower
Re: Floor 9, east side
*The tenant on Floor 9 (Harcourt Insurance) vacated the premises in March. The floor is empty. It has been cleaned and stripped of furniture. The east side has no desks. Please do not enter the floor after hours without a supervisor.*
· · ·
**Porter's note (8 Oct)**
I took a supervisor, Mr. Aldous, to Floor 9 at 23:58. He is a sensible man. He stood in the lift lobby and looked at the floor through the glass doors. Fourteen desks, fourteen lamps, a long room full of low brown light.
He said he could see nothing.
I said: "Fourteen lamps." He said: "I see a dark floor." I opened the door. He walked in. He stopped by the nearest desk, where the lamp was burning, and put his hand into the light. He drew it back, and looked at it.
"It's warm," he said.
· · ·
**Porter's note (15 Oct)**
Lamps on Floor 9: 22. On Floor 10: 8. Floor 11: 3. They are spreading upward, one desk at a time, in the dark, as if somebody were opening an office on each floor and starting work.
I have been watching. Between midnight and four, there is a faint sound. Typing. Many typists, in a great hall, none in step. The sound drifts down the lift shafts. It has a rhythm I know from my father's days at the *Gazette*. It is the sound of a deadline.
· · ·
**Porter's note (20 Oct)**
Floors with lamps lit: all 22. I have walked each of them. The desks are full of papers. The papers are no longer blank. They are covered in neat small type. I read one. It was my own log, in my own words. It recorded this round, as I made it, entry by entry, down to the smudge I left on the tray.
At the bottom of the page was a last line, in the type: *The porter has read this far.*
· · ·
**Final log entry (Calder Tower, 31 Oct, 23:58)**
Round. Lights on, all floors. Every desk occupied. Nobody looked up as I passed. Nobody turned a head. They were all writing, quickly and carefully, with the lamps behind them throwing their shadows on the carpet, and I understood what they were doing. They were writing the building. They were each writing one hour of it, one floor at a time.
I have one hour left to write. It is the hour between midnight and one. I have been given a desk on the ground floor, by reception, with a brass lamp and a clean pad and a pen. I have switched on the light.