W. is overwhelmed by work, he says, broken by it, by the prospect of it. Administration! How do I ever begin?, W. wonders. How can I make a start when the task itself is so immense? I must not be able to see the whole thing, W. says. The big picture is closed to me. Otherwise, how could I go on? How could I persist from day to day? W., by comparison, is a seer, he says. He's seen too much. He knows where it's heading. He's seen through the day to the night, and to the night of all nights.
He sees it in his mind's eye, W. says. I pause from my ceaseless administrative work, look up for a moment … What am I thinking about? What thought's struck me? But he knows I am only full of administrative anxieties, and my pause is only a slackening of the same relentless movement.
On, on, on, that's what I say to myself, isn't it?, W. says. There are always more boxes to fill in, more forms … I'm an administrative machine, an administrative maniac, W. says. I find the meaning of my existence in my administrative labours, he knows that; he finds it fascinating.
And what of him, when he looks up from his administrative labours? What does he see? Of what is he dreaming? Of a single thought, from which something might begin, he says. Of a single thought that might justify his existence.
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