It was an awful amount of work, being the Record Keeper. She knows better than anyone how tiring and tedious all of it is. Every morning, the Record Keeper wakes up at dawn. She folds her corduroy blue sheets. She crosses another day off the calendar, which hangs upon her  cornflower blue walls. She walks down the steps lined with navy blue carpeting. She makes herself a (blue) bowl of oatmeal (with blueberries). At that point, twenty minutes have passed. She sits down at her indigo rolling chair, at her cyan desk. Finally, the real work begins. 

The desk is surrounded by a labyrinth of denim colored filing cabinets, each filled to the brim with pale blue papers. In fact, the entire kitchen is littered with these mile high file cabinets. Some uncannily bend and curve against the ceiling, drooping down like willow trees. Sometimes she wonders what would happen if one of them fell down. Then she remembers that’s a silly thought, and pushes the thought aside. Each paper contains the name, address, favorite color, date of birth, and date of death of every person on earth. Some files are missing the last space. It is the record keepers job to fill it. As she sits down, She picks up the two turquoise letters that sit neatly next to her desk. They had been delivered the day before, by the Mailman. 

The Mailman was perhaps the only person the Record Keeper had considered a friend since her early childhood (which was long forgotten. All the words she would have used to describe it were pushed aside by the millions of words she reads and writes on the daily). Every afternoon, at approximately 1:00 pm (one of the few markers of time the Record Keeper can be certain of), he delivers her two turquoise envelopes. Both are from corporate. One contains the name of everyone who had died that day. The other contains the name of everyone who was born that day. The Mailman knocks seven times, in a peculiar rhythm, on her royal blue door. There is no need for him to do this, as everyday she gets up from her chair one minute before he arrives. She opens the door for him. Each time, she is shocked by the sunlight that streams through the door. It scrapes against her eyes like icy water against bare skin. She closes her eyes for a few moments, trying to adjust. The Mailman waits. All the while, he smiles crookedly. Finally, she blinks once more, and he offers her the letters. He makes simple conversation. 

“The corners are very sharp today. I nearly got a papercut.” he notes, adjusting his satchel. 

“Why would you not put them in your bag, with all the other letters you deliver?” Her voice was hoarse, as it always was. Twenty four hours without talking will do that to a person. 

“I want to make sure they don’t get crumpled! They’re much more important than any of the other letters I deliver, I can tell you that.” he pats his bag assuredly, as if to demonstrate the other letters' sturdiness. 

“Hmm,” she stared at the cerulean bag, which had made its first appearance about five months ago, replacing his typical brown bag. He claimed the strap broke, but he was still yet to fix it. “How are they?” He knew exactly what she meant by this. 

“Horses are doing well, but I think the white one hurt her foot,” he started.

 There was a horse farm on the side of the road, about three miles from the Record Keeper’s house. The Mailman had never seen the owner of these horses, but had observed them all for years. 

“The special at the diner is chicken soup today, but I didn’t get it because I’m not a fan of soup’s texture.” 

The Record Keeper smiled. She was always amused by his peculiar opinions and reservations.  

“And tonight is a waxing crescent moon.” 

This was both her favorite, and her least favorite part of their conversations. The Record Keeper looked down, and then to the side of the Mailman. She tried to take in all of it, as she always did, before these little meetings came to an end. The air was sharp, the clouds blanketing the top of the sky. The tree branches were completely barren. 

“Thank you. Have a nice day.” the Record Keeper said as she picked up the large aquamarine bag to her side, filled to the brim with the used papers the Mailman would go recycle for her. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to get a cup of coffee?” the Mailman offered, as he always did. 

“There’s a lot of work to do.” The Record Keeper closed the door. As she always did. She went back to her blue chair, at her blue desk, with her blue papers and her blue pen and her blue filing cabinets and her blue oatmeal that was starting to congeal. The air was soft. 

The Record Keeper worked for hours, as she always did. She’d check the list, find the file, cross a name out, and write the date. She would occasionally take a few seconds to look up at the sky blue ceiling. The list was written in an incredibly small font, which sometimes hurt her eyes if she stared at it for too long (although it was her own fault- she had specifically requested it be written as small as possible, as to minimize wasted paper). For those few seconds, she couldn’t help but think about the moon. Waxing crescent. Crescent moons were the nicest to look at (or at least she figured they were). Not quite so overwhelming as a full moon, but just as beautiful. Like something out of a storybook. If the Record Keeper was honest with herself, that was her main frame of reference as to what the moon even looked like. She knew the cycles by heart, but she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she had seen it in person. In her mind, it was a pale powder blue, radiating a forcefield of white light. The periwinkle stars would surround it in a perfect cylinder, with a storybook like stillness. It would all be so scattered, yet so linear. 

Dwelling on it was pointless, she reminded herself. There was work to be done. She picked up the recently delivered blue paper, sliding open the denim filing cabinets until 

knock knock knock knock knock. knock knock  

The Record Keeper furrowed her brow in confusion. It couldn’t possibly have been twenty four hours already! She cautiously sat up from her blue desk, tucking her blue chair into the empty crevice between the legs of the desk. Her feet felt the floor beneath them, the first ounce of pressure they had felt since she sat down. She walked over to the door, and her hand lingered on the handle for just a moment. The formerly smooth brass was now rough and chalky to the touch, having been painted over with multiple coats of indigo. As she pulled the royal blue door open, a much dimmer stream of light than before trickled in. In the doorway stood the Mailman. 

“Why don’t you ever want to come get a cup of coffee with me?” he asked. The Record Keeper simply sighed. 

“It’s not a matter of not wanting to,” she explained. “It’s a matter of having no time.” 

“You really don’t have an hour to spare?” 

“No. I have to plan my time out extremely carefully.” 

“Well, then how about fifteen minutes? Then you can go see the moon you’re so interested in for yourself!” the Mailman suggested. The Record Keeper let out an amused breath at this. 

“Fifteen minutes wasted on the moon? That would be silly.” 

“I don’t think it would be silly at all.” 

“I’m so busy, between all the record keeping, letter collecting, and sleeping. Unless I’m looking at it from my own bed, seeing it would be a waste of time.” 

“It wouldn’t be a waste of time. It would make you happy.”  

“It makes me happy to finish my work.” 

“Yeah, but what’s so bad about not finishing?” the Mailman fidgeted with the straps on his satchel. 

“It leaves more work for me to do tomorrow.” 

“But then when does it stop?” The Record Keeper’s eyes had fully adjusted to the outside by now. She was rarely outside long enough for that to happen. Everything was a lot more still then she remembered it being. There was a slight breeze, causing a few fallen leaves to gently float a few inches of the ground. One landed on her doorstep, next to the Mailman’s blue-gray sneakers. Her eyes snapped to the leaf. Then back to him.

“It doesn’t.” She said this a little softer. She didn’t mean to. 

“Then what’s the point? If it never stops, there’s always more to do, which means who cares if you spend an hour at coffee, or fifteen minutes to step outside and see the moon?” The Record Keeper tried to think of a good answer to this question. 

“If everybody thought like that, nothing would ever get done.” Was the answer she settled on. The Mailman’s whole body seemed to tense after she said this. 

“Everybody does think like that! Everybody in the world except for you! If you’re only ever working, you’re not working toward something. What could it possibly all be for?”

“It’s incredibly important work.” 

“Why?” This startled the Record Keeper. How could he possibly question the importance of her job? After all, she was in charge of life itself! Well, not quite. She was in charge of writing it down. Which was also very important, obviously. She thought. She had been trying to remember why for almost a year now, and she was getting very close. The Record Keeper took a very deep breath in. She made a point to lock eyes with the Mailman as she spoke, as to reinforce her point. 

“I will never go to a coffee shop, or a diner. I will never see the horses. And I will certainly never see the moon. Some people get to do all of those things, and more. But not everybody can. Some of us just aren’t meant to. And that’s okay.” The Record Keeper smiled, and closed the door. 

The soft air had become dry. There seemed to be an endless stream of blue dust particles floating from room to room. The Record Keeper felt an odd tugging sensation in the back of her throat as she walked back to her blue desk and blue chair. (And blue papers and blue pen and blue bowl and blue filing cabinets and blue walls and blue work.) The hours trudged on until she crossed the final name off of the list. She folded up the letters, and placed them neatly in the closest filing cabinet to the left of her. She stood up from her desk, pushed the ever so slightly skewed chair back into the open crevice, and walked up the stairs. 

It was an awful lot of work being the Record Keeper. All of the tedious work she does makes her very tired. She walks up her stairs, lined with navy carpeting. She steps into her room, with the cornflower blue walls and corduroy blue bed sheets. She climbs into bed, and stares up at the ceiling for a moment. She then turns to her cadet blue nightside table, and flicks off her neon blue lamp. The Record Keeper was very important, and therefore very tired. Or at least she should be very tired. However, that night she found herself unable to keep her eyes shut for more than a moment. She stared at the ceiling. What could possibly be above it? 

Just then, she heard a thump above her. She blinked. Her heart stopped beating for just a moment, in anticipation of catastrophe. After a few seconds, she decided that it was only her imagination. Suddenly, there was a sharp and appalling scratching sound against her roof. Some type of mechanical device revved, there was a horrific screeching and cutting sound. The Record Keeper shot up, scooting as far back in her bed as she could get. She stared up at the ceiling with mostly fear, but also a twinge of interest. After a few seconds, a blade broke through the ceiling. It moved in a very crude circular motion, until a piece of roof fell onto the bottom of the bed. She jumped in surprise as it thudded against her sheets. Without warning, a hand poked through the hole, to give her a quick thumbs up, followed by hurried thuds in the opposite direction. She stared at the hole in confusion for a moment, then cautiously inched back to where she was originally laying (careful not to kick the piece of roof). She looked up at the night sky. Despite being shrouded in sheet clouds, she could see that the sky was piercingly clear. The clouds were merely a jacket, cloaking the smooth stratosphere. The scattered stars acted as ornaments, shining a bright white. They were a lot dimmer than she had imagined. A cold stream of air was now flowing directly onto her face, but she didn’t mind all that much. She was looking at the night sky. And for the first time, in what felt like an eternity, she saw it. The pale yellow moon.