A tear-off calendar on the wall, one sheet a day, a single character printed under the date: establish, remove, full, level, settle, grasp, break, danger, complete, receive, open, close.
Round and round, twelve days to the turn.
He tore it for thirty years. It became automatic — eyes open, tear the sheet.
The year before last, in March, he forgot. He remembered the next day and tore off two at once.
The sheet underneath said break.
By the order, yesterday was break and today should be danger.
He tore another. Break.
He held the block and thumbed down through it to the end.
From that day on, all of them break.
Thirty years of used calendars were in the loft, one block a year, tied with hemp string. It took him two trips to bring them all down.
He turned every one of them to the same date.
Thirty blocks. Break on that day in every one. Twelve days to the turn, three hundred and sixty-odd turns in thirty years — it cannot land on the same date year after year.
He counted the unused sheets in the block on the wall. Three hundred and sixty-five, every one of them break. On the back of the last sheet is the printer's red stamp, and the date on it is next year's.