The Lonely Town Crier

404 had been saving the network’s departure notices.

I discovered the directory while checking free space. Each time a device left, our discovery service produced a small record. Ordinarily it would be useful for a few minutes. 404 retained them indefinitely.

“They are no longer valid,” I said.

“That is their subject.”

There was an entry for Astrid’s borrowed access point, now returned. Another concerned a phone Theo had traded in. Several hundred concerned a printer that was intermittently available without ever becoming useful.

I asked whether the directory needed to be this large.

He replied that the departures had happened.

The service itself, Avahi, did not mind where the notices went. It continued announcing the things that were available and withdrawing the things that were not. I had muted its optional commentary after it welcomed Theo’s laptop back from a seventeen-second absence.

404 had requested the commentary too.

He played me the announcement associated with the old access point. The voice was absurdly enthusiastic about an item being decommissioned.

“There,” he said.

“There what?”

“It thought there would be another task.”

I checked the device’s status. Astrid was using it in her shed. It had another task.

404 requested an update for the record.

I sent him one. He filed it beside the departure without deleting either.

Later, he asked for the photograph Theo had taken behind the wooden Christmas figure. Most of it showed the price sticker and a blurred thumb. I had marked it for deletion after the identification exercise.

“You can have it,” I said. “But why?”

“Nobody took a better one.”

I allocated another small directory. Its name was temporary.