SLARVATHOffice of Off-World Correspondence

Grainy monochrome orbital image of a city block at night
PASS 0104
0241 LOCAL
SEEING POOR
37.3382 N 121.8863 W
Polaroid of a laundromat interior at night, a row of front-loading machines and a chipped enamel mug on the table
Sixth St. — thirty-one minutes
Medium — polaroid
SLV-0104

The Room of Turning Machines

There is a room on Sixth Street that stays open all night and costs money to enter, although nobody guards the door.

Inside are twenty machines and every one of them turns clothing in a circle. For some time I could not tell whether the clothing was being cleaned or being taught something. A woman showed me the correct amount of powder. She was not startled by me, which I have noticed happens more often at night.

I stayed for one full cycle, which is thirty-one minutes. The machines make a sound like weather. Nobody in the room was speaking and nobody appeared troubled that nobody was speaking, and I thought: here is a room where a person is permitted to simply wait. We have no word for this at home. We have four words for waiting and all of them are about what comes afterward.

I put nothing into the machines. I had nothing to wash. I do not believe this was against the rules.

Office annotationCorrespondent SLV-4 refers to a laundromat. Photographic record accepted. Entry to such an establishment is not itself charged; payment is made per machine and is at the visitor's discretion. The stated interval of thirty-one minutes is 4.61 kadd. The Office notes that a Slarvathian would ordinarily record such an interval as one sull, a duration named for what is done inside it and therefore not convertible, and that the Correspondent has given the figure in local units without remarking on it. Both are entered. His account of the sound is not disputed.