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RE A ENTIRE**
## *"It's Our All"* — C60
### Field Log 0 (or perhaps 97)
I am **RE A ENTIRE**, Overseer Third-Class of the Great Insect Tongue Factory, although titles molt faster than beetles around here.
Every morning begins yesterday.
Every whistle ends before it is blown.
The factory stands somewhere between Pluto, the bottom of the lake, the backwards forest, and the hallway where RED ALL keeps trying to shorten itself into something that can fit inside an ordinary pocket.
I supervise the tongue presses.
Not human tongues.
Insect tongues.
Thousands.
Millions.
Each one stamped, polished, inspected, folded, catalogued, translated, reversed, boxed, unboxed, and occasionally sung to.
Quality matters.
---
### Department of Reverse Speech
The first rule:
Nothing leaves the building speaking forward.
Workers greet one another.
Forward:
> "Good morning."
Factory language:
> "gninrom dooG."
Official Factory Dialect:
> **"Gnor-Mul Tekh Aroo."**
Its reverse pronunciation:
> **"Oora Hket Lum-Rong."**
No one knows which direction means yes.
Management has stopped asking.
---
Our oldest language is called **SHEVVARIK**.
Sample:
> **"Tal vek urro naa shent."**
Literal backward rendering:
> **"Tnehs aan orru kev lat."**
Approximate meaning:
> *The corridor remembered the feet before the feet remembered the corridor.*
---
Another department speaks only **MURRAK-8**.
Morning greeting:
> **"Ska-vell nurru tek om."**
Reverse:
> **"Mo ket urrun llev-aks."**
Translation:
> *Coffee has forgotten becoming rain.*
Everyone applauds.
---
By noon the beetles begin their shift.
Not employees.
Inspectors.
Unionized.
Terrible handwriting.
Excellent attendance.
---
HAMMER from **Pumps and a Bump C20** occasionally visits carrying anvils that weigh less than ideas.
He hammers silence flatter so it fits into shipping crates.
OAK OWNS arrives later.
His notebook is still damp from the lake.
He keeps insisting every puddle is merely an unfinished paragraph.
ERRY CANT wanders in after lunch.
He has misplaced half the story again.
Nobody blames him.
Missing pieces are considered inventory.
---
Then comes **NIE SAND**.
Walking backward.
Naturally.
RED ALL follows behind carrying an increasingly shorter light year folded like laundry.
"No Limit" C90 continues making sounds no engineer wishes to classify.
> brrrk.
> klunnnnk.
> shhhhhhh.
> perhaps.
The machine approves twenty-seven thousand insect tongues per hour.
Nobody knows why.
---
Production Report
Monday
Tongues completed:
██████████████
Tuesday
██████████████████
Wednesday
██████
Reason for slowdown:
Several syllables escaped into ventilation.
---
The factory possesses thirteen elevators.
Every one descends upward.
Visitors complain.
Employees call it efficient.
---
Lunch Break
Menu
• compressed echoes
• rectangular soup
• circular bread
• frozen tea served warm
• conversational salt
---
Occasionally the walls begin speaking **GRONTHIC**, our oldest impossible language.
Example.
> **"Vesk torru meen ak sal."**
Reversed.
> **"Las ka neem urr otksev."**
Meaning.
> *A promise folded itself into tomorrow because yesterday was already occupied.*
---
The ants prefer **RUKH-RUKH.**
Conversation.
> **"Rukh ta.
> Rukh ta.
> Turr.
> Turr."**
Translation.
Nobody important remembers.
---
Roaches speak **LLEMNOIR**.
Forward.
> **"Ner astov illik rome."**
Backward.
> **"Emor killi votsa ren."**
Meaning.
> *The floor has been promoted again.*
Perfectly ordinary.
---
Sometimes I inspect Warehouse Seven.
Inside are abandoned stories.
One shelf contains Pluto.
Another contains the lake.
Another contains frozen kisses that became stars.
Another contains every graph ERRY CANT ever drew.
Most are labeled simply:
"approximately."
---
One graph remains attached to the ceiling.
```
MEANING
##########
STORY
#########################
EXPLANATION
##
QUESTIONS
########################################
```
Certified accurate.
---
Another graph.
```
FORWARD
========
BACKWARD
=======================
FACTORY APPROVED
YES
```
---
Every evening we polish unused alphabets.
Some letters refuse employment.
Others become punctuation.
Commas breed rapidly.
Semicolons hibernate.
Question marks molt twice each winter.
---
I once asked the factory why we manufacture insect tongues.
The machinery answered in **EKH-TORR.**
> **"Vel naa turok shem arii."**
Reverse.
> **"Iira mehs korut aan lev."**
Translation supplied three weeks later.
> *Because every creature deserves a language large enough to get lost inside.*
No supervisor has challenged that policy.
---
Closing Bell
Except bells do not ring.
They molt.
Tiny bronze feathers drift through the production floor.
Workers sweep them into barrels labeled:
FUTURE.
PAST.
ALMOST.
NOT YET.
---
When my shift finally ends—which usually happens before it begins—I sign the ledger:
**RE A ENTIRE**
*"It's Our All"*
C60
Edition of 1, numbered.