The city was a series of waiting rooms. That was the first thing the man noticed. He lived in a city where the architecture was designed by a committee of bureaucrats who had never seen a building, only a set of regulations.

The man had one goal: to find the Office of Paternal Records. He had been told that his father was listed there, and that the record would explain why he had been abandoned thirty years ago.

He spent the first year navigating the First District. He found the Office of Records, but it was only for records of people who had died on Tuesdays. He was told to go to the Third District for "General Disappearances."

In the Third District, he found a door labeled "General Disappearances," but when he opened it, he found himself in a small room with a single desk and a clerk who was eating a very large sandwich. "You're in the wrong place," the clerk said, without looking up. "Paternal records were moved to the Sub-Basement of the Ministry of Lineage last Tuesday."

The man spent the next five years descending. He traveled through corridors that looped back on themselves and climbed stairs that led to ceilings. He met other seekers—men and women who had been searching for their parents, their children, or their own birth certificates for decades. They formed a small, polite society, sharing tips on which clerks were most likely to give a straight answer.

Eventually, he found the door. It was a small, wooden door in a damp corner of the basement. He opened it and found a small office with two desks. At one desk sat a man who looked exactly like him, only older, with the same receding hairline and the same nervous habit of tapping his pen.

"Hello," the man said. "Are you here for the records?"

"Yes," the man replied. "I'm looking for my father."

The older man sighed and pointed to the empty desk beside him. "I'm your father. I've been waiting for you to arrive so I can show you how to file the paperwork for your own disappearance. It's a very strict process. We have to do it in triplicate."

The man sat down at the empty desk. He took the pen and began to fill out the form. He didn't ask any questions. He didn't feel any anger. He simply began to file the papers, knowing that the only way to find his father was to become exactly like him.

[OTMES_v2_CODE: M1:3.0 | M3:8.0 | N2:0.9 | K1:0.4 | TI:30.0 | theta:225°]