Tajima had been with the Bureau of Negative Certification for fifteen years.
The job was simple. Every morning at 8:45, he issued a certificate stating that nothing had arrived in this region today. The Cosmic Ray Transit Office sent him the previous day’s measurement data. He checked the numbers, stamped the form. That was it.
Most people had no idea the bureau existed. Those who did tended to ask what the point was. For his first three years or so, Tajima had wondered the same thing.
“What good is a certificate proving nothing came?”
Chief Matsuda, his senior, took a sip of tea before answering.
“The longer nothing comes, the better this job is working.”
Tajima never asked again.
The form hadn’t changed since day one. A field for the recipient, a field for the date, and the words NO ANOMALIES DETECTED printed in large type. Tajima’s stamp in the lower right corner. Every morning at 8:45. Weekends, holidays — it didn’t matter. Fifteen years, 5,475 certificates, stacked in a drawer.
Every day was the same. He’d come to assume, without quite deciding to, that it always would be.
This morning, at 8:43, the phone rang. The Cosmic Ray Transit Office.
“Tajima-san. We’ve got something coming through today.”
There was laughter in the voice — barely contained.
“When you say coming through—”
“Oh, it came. A big one.”
The data arrived. Tajima looked at the numbers. He looked again. A third time. Apparently it was real. Some explosion far out in the cosmos, something flung across billions of light-years, had been caught deep beneath the earth last night. This was the one Chief Matsuda had mentioned on his last day before retirement — if that ever shows up, it’ll be history.
Tajima pulled out a form. Filled in the recipient field. Wrote the date.
His pen stopped in front of NO ANOMALIES DETECTED.
Today was not a no-anomalies day.
“Tajima-san, the certificate—” the voice on the phone ventured.
“I can’t issue one today,” Tajima said.
A short silence.
“First time in fifteen years?”
“Yes.”
He hung up and sat for a while without moving.
Morning light came through the window the way it always did. Something that had traveled billions of light-years passed through the earth last night and vanished without anyone noticing — except in one place.
Tajima took a fresh form. Slowly, he drew two lines through the words NO ANOMALIES DETECTED.