A Form Read Aloud Until It Becomes a Lullaby

Somebody sat down with the Bureau’s Visitor Declaration and read it out, in full, forty-one times, until the language stopped meaning and started comforting.

By the eleventh pass, tick one only has become a melody. By the twenty-third, indecision will be filed accordingly has become a promise that everything will be looked after by somebody else. By the thirty-eighth, the reader has begun inventing clauses, and the invented clauses are kinder than the real ones.

The final three passes are missing from the tape. The Bureau’s position is that they were never recorded. The tape’s position is that it is █████████████████ about that.

Intake notes

This is the only transmission the Bureau plays deliberately at the public terminal, on the grounds that a visitor who falls asleep at Desk 4 has, in a narrow sense, been served.

Handling

Cleared for all areas. If a visitor sleeps, issue a ticket and let them finish.