The Curator

I was hired to soften things.

Not to lie, Mr. Vilner explained during my interview—he was very clear about this—but to prepare people. To ensure that when the bad news arrived, it arrived gently, cushioned by context, wrapped in perspective, delivered with appropriate emotional scaffolling so that no one would be traumatized by suddenness.

“We are not censors,” he said, adjusting his glasses with the careful pride of a man who had found a meaningful distinction. “We are curators.”

The office was located between the newsroom and the public, in a space that had once been a supply closet. My desk faced a small window through which I could see the waiting room where people sat, expecting to learn things.

Mr. Vilner handed me a manual: Guidelines for Compassionate Information Distribution. The cover showed a photograph of a man reading a newspaper while sitting in a comfortable chair. He looked calm. He looked prepared.

“Your job,” said Mr. Vilner, “is quality control. You will review the day’s news and ensure it has been properly… softened. Not changed, you understand. Simply contextualized.”

He showed me examples.

BEFORE: “Thirty people died in a factory fire.”

AFTER: “Thirty people died in a factory fire, though we should remember that factory fires have decreased 3% since 1987, and that most factories do not catch fire, and that many of the people who died had been planning to retire soon anyway.”

“You see?” said Mr. Vilner. “The same information. But kinder.”

I was given a red pen—not for corrections, Mr. Vilner insisted, but for “emotional annotations”—and a stamp that read REVIEWED FOR TONAL APPROPRIATENESS.

The first piece of news arrived at 9 a.m.

It was about a flood. Forty homes destroyed, twelve people missing. The article was brief, factual, devastating.

I added a paragraph about how floods, historically, had once been much worse. I included statistics about improved drainage systems. I noted that many of the affected residents had flood insurance, or at least access to the application forms.

Mr. Vilner reviewed my work and nodded approvingly.

“Good,” he said. “Though perhaps you could add something about community resilience. People find that comforting.”

I added a sentence about how the community would surely come together, as communities often did, and that this was, in its own way, an opportunity for collective growth.

The news was released at 10 a.m. I watched through my small window as people in the waiting room received it. A woman read the headline, frowned slightly, then continued to the section about improved drainage systems. She looked thoughtful. She did not scream.

“You see?” said Mr. Vilner, who had appeared beside me. “You’ve helped her.”

By noon, I had reviewed seventeen pieces of news. A factory closure (though unemployment was down overall, and many workers were nearing retirement age anyway). A political scandal (though all politicians were flawed, and this one had once supported a popular bill about parks). A study showing increased rates of childhood illness (though medicine was better than ever, and many illnesses were technically survivable).

Each time, I softened. I contextualized. I provided perspective.

“You’re very good at this,” said Mr. Vilner during my lunch break, which I took at my desk. “You have a talent for emotional cushioning.”

A few weeks passed and Mr Vilner handed me a certificate, pre-signed: EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH (PROVISIONAL).

“There’s a position opening soon,” he said. “Senior Curator. It would involve managing the more… difficult news items. The ones that require extensive preparation before release.”

“What kind of news?” I asked.

Mr. Vilner hesitated. “Managerial, mostly. Administrative transitions. We’ve found that people respond very poorly to… abrupt changes. Your job would be to prepare them. To help them understand that processes, while valuable, are also complicated, and that sometimes technical adjustments are necessary, and that stability, in the end, is what people truly want.”

He showed me a form: NOTIFICATION OF CHANGE (CONTEXTUALIZED).

It had eighty-seven fields. Section 12 asked for “historical precedents that normalize the current situation.” Section 34 required “economic benefits that might offset concerns about procedural irregularities.” Section 71 was blank except for the words: “Emphasize inevitability here.”

⸻

The difficult news arrived three weeks later.

It came in an unmarked envelope, delivered by a man who did not make eye contact. Inside were three items, paper-clipped together.

The first was brief:

Opposition candidate Dmitrov found dead. Apparent suicide.

The second was longer, and clipped to it were seventeen supplementary memoranda, each stamped TECHNICAL ADDENDUM:

Electoral Commission announces recount has reversed preliminary results. A tumbler of ink, accidentally knocked over by a cleaning staff member at Polling Station 7, rendered 8,000 ballots completely illegible. Forensic document analysts have been called in to interpret voter intent. Additionally, several ballot boxes from Districts 12, 15, and 19 were discovered to have been stored in a facility with inadequate temperature control, causing the ink to fade to near-invisibility. Specialists in paleographic reconstruction, including two Akkadian scholars from the National Museum, have been retained to examine the residual markings under specialized lighting. Preliminary analysis suggests that when properly interpreted, these ballots overwhelmingly favor Volkov. Final margin: 312 votes.

The third was a single sentence:

In light of persistent economic instability and infrastructure failures (see: ink incident), Emergency Parliament session has appointed Volkov as Chairman of the Provisional Directorate for National Stability, effective immediately. Term limit: until the achievement of “sufficient stability” (metrics to be determined by the Directorate).

Mr. Vilner was standing behind me. I had not heard him enter.

“Start with Dmitrov,” he said.

I picked up my red pen.

BEFORE: Opposition candidate Dmitrov found dead. Apparent suicide.

I stared at the words. I thought about context. About cushioning.

I began to write.

AFTER: Opposition candidate Dmitrov found dead in what authorities are calling an apparent suicide, though we should remember that political life is extraordinarily stressful, and that Dmitrov had recently spoken publicly about feeling exhausted by the campaign. While his death is tragic, we should note that he had been trailing in several polls, and that many political candidates throughout history have struggled with the psychological burdens of public service. His family has requested privacy, which suggests they accept the official conclusion, and grief, while natural, should be balanced with an appreciation for the mental health challenges facing all public servants—

“Good,” said Mr. Vilner, reading over my shoulder. “Though perhaps add something about how this creates an opportunity for dialogue about workplace stress. People respond well to silver linings.”

I added a sentence about how Dmitrov’s death, while sad, could serve as an important catalyst for national conversation about mental health support.

“Perfect,” said Mr. Vilner. “Now the election.”

I moved to the second item. I read it again. Then a third time.

“The ink,” I said.

“Yes,” said Mr. Vilner. “Unfortunate.”

“Eight thousand ballots.”

“A very large tumbler,” said Mr. Vilner. “Industrial-sized, apparently. The cleaning person has been reprimanded.”

“And the Akkadian scholars?”

Mr. Vilner consulted one of the supplementary memoranda. “Dr. Rashid and Professor Helmstedt. Both highly credentialed. Dr. Rashid published the definitive translation of the Enûma Eliš in 2019. Professor Helmstedt specializes in cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period. The Electoral Commission felt their experience with fragmentary and degraded texts made them uniquely qualified.”

“To read ballots,” I said.

“To interpret ballots,” Mr. Vilner corrected. “There’s a meaningful distinction. When text is damaged, interpretation requires expertise. The Commission was very thorough. They also consulted a forensic document examiner, two handwriting analysts, and someone from the Department of Medieval Manuscripts who has experience with palimpsests.”

He handed me another memo. “This one explains the faded ink. Apparently the storage facility’s climate control system had been malfunctioning for weeks. The temperature fluctuated between 18 and 34 degrees Celsius. Very damaging to ink. There’s a full technical report.”

I skimmed the report. It was forty-seven pages long. Page 23 included a chart showing “Projected Ink Degradation Under Variable Thermal Conditions.” Page 31 had photographs of the ballots under different wavelengths of light. In some of them, I could see faint markings that might have been letters, or might have been shadows, or might have been nothing at all.

“And all of these degraded ballots,” I said, “favored Volkov?”

“When properly interpreted, yes,” said Mr. Vilner. “Dr. Rashid was quite certain. He said the stroke patterns were consistent with someone attempting to mark ‘Volkov’ but being hesitant due to poor pen quality. Professor Helmstedt concurred, noting that the faded marks resembled the erasure patterns she’d seen in Sumerian administrative documents where scribes had corrected errors.”

“These were modern ballots,” I said. “With checkboxes.”

“Yes, but the principle is the same,” said Mr. Vilner. “Interpretation of authorial intent from degraded source material. It’s a very old problem. That’s why the Commission wanted historians involved.”

I stared at the seventeen supplementary memoranda. One was titled “Comparative Analysis of Mark-Making Behavior Across Four Millennia.” Another was “Statistical Modeling of Probable Voter Intent in Suboptimal Recording Conditions.”

“Did anyone,” I asked, “suggest just holding another election?”

Mr. Vilner looked genuinely puzzled. “But that would invalidate all this research,” he said. “Dr. Rashid spent three weeks on his analysis. It would be disrespectful.”

He opened the binder to Chapter 11: “Framing Electoral Irregularities as Scientific Rather Than Political.”

“The key,” he said, “is to help people understand that this was a technical problem with a technical solution. Very rigorous. Very academic. The Akkadian scholars are particularly helpful—they add gravitas.”

I picked up my red pen.

BEFORE: Electoral Commission announces recount has reversed preliminary results. A tumbler of ink rendered 8,000 ballots illegible. Forensic analysts and Akkadian scholars called in to interpret votes.

I began to write.

AFTER: Electoral Commission announces recount has reversed preliminary results following a comprehensive technical review of ballots affected by two separate but unrelated documentation preservation issues. In the first incident, a tumbler of ink—industrial-sized, and regrettably placed near ballot storage by a cleaning staff member who has since completed additional training—was accidentally knocked over at Polling Station 7, rendering approximately 8,000 ballots illegible. In the second incident, ballot boxes from Districts 12, 15, and 19 were stored in a facility with malfunctioning climate control, causing significant ink degradation.

The Commission, committed to ensuring every vote counts, retained a multidisciplinary team of experts to interpret voter intent from these damaged materials. The team included two forensic document examiners, three handwriting analysts, a specialist in medieval manuscript restoration, and two distinguished scholars of ancient Mesopotamian languages—Dr. Yusuf Rashid and Professor Anna Helmstedt—whose experience with fragmentary historical texts proved invaluable in reconstructing meaning from degraded source material.

Using advanced imaging techniques, statistical modeling, and comparative analysis of mark-making patterns across multiple historical periods, the expert panel determined with high confidence that the damaged ballots, when properly interpreted, overwhelmingly favored Volkov. While some have questioned the methodology, we should remember that forensic reconstruction is a well-established scientific discipline, and that the scholars involved are internationally recognized authorities in their respective fields. Dr. Rashid’s interpretation of cuneiform tablets has been cited in over 200 academic publications.

The final margin of 312 votes, while narrow, reflects the Commission’s commitment to counting every vote—even those requiring paleographic analysis to decode. Democracy depends on thoroughness, and we should be grateful that we live in an era where such sophisticated interpretive techniques are available to ensure electoral accuracy—

I stopped.

Mr. Vilner was reading over my shoulder. “Excellent,” he said. “Though perhaps you could add something about how this demonstrates our society’s respect for expertise and scientific inquiry.”

I added a paragraph about how the election process, while unconventional, represented a triumph of interdisciplinary collaboration and evidence-based decision-making.

“Beautiful,” said Mr. Vilner. “Now the Directorate.”

The third item sat on my desk like something that had been waiting all along.

BEFORE: Emergency Parliament session appoints Volkov as Chairman of the Provisional Directorate for National Stability. Term limit: until achievement of “sufficient stability” (metrics to be determined by the Directorate).

Mr. Vilner opened the binder to Chapter 14: “Extraordinary Measures in Response to Extraordinary Circumstances.”

But first he handed me another supplementary memo.

JUSTIFICATION FOR EMERGENCY MEASURES:

Recent events—including but not limited to: the ink incident at Polling Station 7, the climate control malfunction affecting ballot storage, the discovery that several other polling stations had been using pens with inadequate ink viscosity, a separate incident in which a ballot box was briefly misplaced and found three hours later in a janitor’s closet, and the ongoing economic challenges that necessitated the factory closures that led to the unemployment of the cleaning staff member whose elbow knocked over the tumbler—have demonstrated a systemic failure of normal administrative oversight.

The Directorate for National Stability has been established to address these cascading infrastructure failures and prevent future incidents of accidental democratic disruption.

I read it twice.

“The dictator,” I said slowly, “is being appointed to fix the problems caused by the tumbler of ink.”

“Not just the tumbler,” said Mr. Vilner. “The entire chain of causation. The climate control. The pen quality. The janitor’s closet. It’s very complex. That’s why we need someone with extraordinary authority to coordinate the response.”

“And the ‘metrics’ for sufficient stability?” I asked.

Mr. Vilner consulted another memo. “To be determined by a committee of experts, appointed by the Directorate, reporting to the Directorate, using criteria developed in consultation with the Directorate.”

“So Volkov decides when Volkov is no longer necessary.”

“Well, it would be improper for anyone else to make that determination,” said Mr. Vilner reasonably. “Who else understands the complexity of the stability metrics?”

He pointed to a section in the binder: “Framing Indefinite Terms as Flexible Rather Than Permanent.”

“People respond poorly to words like ‘dictator’ or ‘autocrat,’” he said. “They prefer ‘coordinator’ or ‘director.’ It sounds temporary. Administrative.”

I picked up my pen.

AFTER: Emergency Parliament session has appointed Volkov as Chairman of the Provisional Directorate for National Stability, a new coordinating body established to address the recent series of infrastructure failures that have affected multiple aspects of civic administration.

The Directorate—whose name emphasizes its provisional and administrative nature—will have authority to implement immediate reforms to prevent future incidents such as the ballot documentation crisis, which exposed serious gaps in our climate control systems, ink quality standards, furniture placement protocols, and cleaning staff supervision procedures.

While some have expressed concern about the Directorate’s “indefinite” term structure, we should understand this as a flexible, outcomes-based framework rather than a permanent arrangement. The Directorate will remain in place only until “sufficient stability” has been achieved, with specific metrics to be developed by an expert panel that will report regularly on progress toward stability goals. This approach—letting expertise and evidence, rather than arbitrary calendar dates, determine the appropriate duration of emergency measures—represents a mature and scientific approach to governance.

We should also note that the Directorate has received enthusiastic support from the nation’s leading economic figures, who have praised Volkov’s commitment to addressing the root causes of infrastructure failure. Several oligarchs have issued a joint statement noting that the recent factory closures and economic restructuring—which indirectly led to the tumbler incident through a complex chain of causation—make strong coordinating authority more necessary than ever.

While change can be uncomfortable, we should remember that the Directorate represents not an end to democratic values but rather their temporary refinement in response to unprecedented administrative challenges. History shows that societies often adopt extraordinary coordinating mechanisms during periods of cascading infrastructure failure, and that such measures, when properly implemented by qualified experts, can successfully restore the stable conditions under which normal democratic processes can resume.

The Directorate has announced that its first priority will be reviewing all government furniture placement policies—