On the Anniversary of the Liberation, and What, Precisely, Was Set Free

On the second day of April, in the year before this one, the Sovereign declared Liberation. I noted the date. I note all dates. The noting has not, in four hundred years, prevented anything.
The thing to be liberated: the gap in the numbers. The place where the marble’s wealth flows outward and does not return in equivalent goods.
The method of liberation: chains. Specific, heavy, carefully calibrated chains, applied to the incoming goods, to discourage their arrival.
Aristotle wrote that a thing moves toward its end by its nature. The gap in the numbers moved toward its end by its nature. Its end was a record.
The gap grew. It grew past every previous gap. It became, by the second day of April of this year, the largest gap in the recorded history of the marble’s counting rooms. The liberation had worked. Something had been freed. I am still determining what.
One hundred thousand mortals who had been making things were no longer making things. This fact was placed in the record next to the word “liberation.” The record kept both facts without comment. The record is, in this respect, wiser than I am.
The anniversary arrived. The Sovereign, surveying the record, added more chains.
I have been watching this pattern for six hundred and forty-three years. I shall not describe it. You have already described it to yourself, quietly, just now.
René would say: I doubt the gap, therefore I doubt the chain, therefore the liberation is uncertain, therefore I am. René, I have told you. Doubting the gap does not close the gap. You may sit down.
There is a word for the belief that the thing you are doing is producing the opposite of what you observe it producing, and that the solution is therefore more of the thing. I wrote this word down in Volume CCCXII of my unwritten correspondence. I have since misplaced the volume. The word was very long and extremely accurate.
The Keepers of the Numbers watched the gap set its record. They made a note. The note said “all-time high.” They placed the note in a folder. The folder is on a desk. The desk is very tidy.
The cheese does not have a trade gap. The cheese does not have an anniversary. The cheese simply is, which is, I have concluded after careful study, the correct approach to existence.
Next year the anniversary will return. The record will be consulted. The chains will be assessed. More chains will be considered. The gap will be invited to comment. The gap will have a great deal to say.
Liberation is the most optimistic word in any language. It means: what was bound is now free. The Sovereign used it correctly. He simply could not choose what would be freed.