The stairs down were not on the construction drawing.
That made him suspicious, according to Tersake.
The fact that he walked over it every morning without seeing it made him especially Tersake, according to the stairs.
The entrance was under the reserved seat.
Not behind.
Not next to it.
Beneath.
When Tersake moved the chair half a meter, an iron ring appeared in the floor.
There was no warning sign.
Only a form.
It was empty.
“That's not possible,” Tersake said.
What sounded like a sigh came from the floor.
Or draft.
Tersake noted a draft for the time being.
A narrow stone staircase began under the hatch. The light from above reached the first seven steps and then decided it had done enough.
On the bottom step it said:
WHO ONLY LOOKS UP,
ONLY SEE HALF.
Tersake looked up.
The chair was back in place.
He continued.
The cellar was larger than the tower.
There were cabinets along the walls with files that no one had created. The spines bore dates, names and decisions that were later claimed to have never been taken.
In the first cupboard were old truths.
Some had once been mandatory.
Others only easy.
In the second cupboard were future plans that had been rejected because they did not yet exist.
Next to it was a chest with the inscription:
GOOD INTENTIONS
DO NOT STACKING
The coffin could no longer be closed.
Further along, portraits hung facing the wall. Not because the people on it had been bad. That would be too simple.
They had looked away.
That turned out to be more sustainable.
“Who runs this?” Tersake asked.
No one answered.
A drawer slid open somewhere.
Therein lay his own stamp.
Tersake picked him up.
Underneath the dried ink was a date from twenty years ago.
He remembered the meeting.
Not what that was about.
Well, there was coffee.
Next to the stamp was a form with his signature.
At the top it said:
SEEN AND NOT VIEWED
For the first time, Tersake did not look for the objection box.
He sat down on a wooden box and read.
Everything.
At the top of the tower the light was less bright that evening.
Nobody noticed.
Except for the jay, which placed an acorn right above the hatch.
And the duck.
She took off her eclipse glasses.
Late at night Tersake surfaced again.
He pushed back the reserved seat.
“Does the cellar have to be locked?” asked Notsnol.
Tersake looked at the key in his hand.
Then to the stairs.
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Because forgetting works much better with a closed door.'
He hung the key next to the hatch.
Not as an invitation.
Not even as a warning.
Simply visible.
Since then, people have continued to search upstairs for relief.
But if you are very quiet, you sometimes hear a drawer open under the floor.
Then the tower knows that there is something again that should not remain buried.