I remember one day, not long after I had been assigned to Unit 701, not long after I had entered beyond those red walls. I was in your father’s office for a moment and I saw upon the wall a series of black Xs. They were arranged like a poem. This is what I saw:

X X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X X X

These black strokes obviously meant something.

I asked your father what it was, and all he said was that they were a cipher, a key to decryption. Then he asked me if I could solve it. He looked at me without making a sound, and it reminded me of something. Then it came to me: I had heard him say this once before. I thought it over for a bit and understood. The markings on the wall matched the number of words he had spoken to us during his one and only lecture. I simply had to put it together, and then I would know which sentence belonged with which set of marks.

This is what was written upon the wall:

You certainly are not you

I certainly am not me

The table certainly is not a table

The blackboard certainly is not a black board

Today certainly is not today

The sunshine certainly is not the sunshine

After he spoke those words during that lecture, a few of us had taken to chanting them out loud, but I never imagined that your father had spent his entire life with them. Later I learnt that every night before bed and every morning when he woke up, he would read these words as if reciting a prayer. At those infrequent times when he had nothing to do, he would retrace the words again and again, so the markings on the wall always looked bright and fresh. Following your father’s example, I did the same. I wrote those words on the four walls of my room, and every night before bed and every morning when I woke up I would recite them. Over time, I learnt that for those of us working in decryption, these words are incredibly important.