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| All Photo-Manipulations: September 2022 |
[Includes Passages of Reconfigured Translation]:
In the current economic climate, it is inevitable that any organisation such as ours finds it increasingly difficult to function at the levels to which we aspire. Funding cuts in all sectors of our operation become a sad necessity, to the point where even our core activities come under threat. Our ability to adequately recompense the network of field agents, on which we have always depended, become severely limited, and it is with reluctance that we have become increasingly reliant upon site surveys and written reports elicited on a voluntary basis. Unsurprisingly, those same agents, on whose diligence and dedication we have built our success, now find their own resources of available time and energy (as well as their ability to self-fund), severely limited - often given the need to augment rapidly diminishing incomes through paid work elsewhere. Even where such additional revenue streams can be found, they are often unlikely to cover rapidly-inflating domestic bills, even before the additional expenses of site visits, etc. are factored-in. Thus, whilst our commitment to our researches (and belief in the cultural importance of our chosen mission) remain unabated, we are forced to recognise that the scope of our enterprise, along with the quality of the service we can offer, can only be compromised at a time like this.
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| All Original Images: West Leicester, September 2022 |
In the light of this, it is only to be expected that regular visits to (and subsequent reports from) the specific location under consideration, should have become few and far between over recent months. Having already acknowledged that the field agent originally assigned to the case was finding themselves less and less able to devote the attention to it that they (or we) might desire - we agreed that the normal expectations should be relaxed - with the proviso that the necessary work be continued on an ad-hoc basis, as and when conditions allowed. Sadly, even this less formal arrangement now appears to have broken down. Having successfully attempted to contact the agent on numerous occasions, we are forced to conclude that they are currently inactive, and remain understandably perplexed by their failure to keep us updated with regard to their present status/whereabouts. This clearly a matter of some concern, when one considers the importance of the identified site as a potential portal of some transportive potential - and as the inevitable processes of entropy must continue unabated, and more importantly - undocumented.
In an attempt to shed a little more light on the situation, a senior member of our steering committee was able recently to clear sufficient time in their own demanding schedule, to visit the site personally. We can only thank them for their own dedication to the cause, and willingness to 'go the extra mile' in this way. The long hours undertaken in clearing the necessary permissions, not to mention the difficulty of securing the services of a chauffeur prepared to volunteer their time unpaid - in order to even commence the expedition, cannot be ignored. Thankfully, their efforts were justified, at least in respect of providing both a visual and written entropic update from the site (see images reproduced here, along with written documentation now filed in the official archive). Unfortunately, it proved possible to deduce very little about the current circumstances of our field agent.
However, one possibly significant, if somewhat perplexing piece of additional evidence did emerge from the visit. On leaving the site, our esteemed colleague observed, and was able to retrieve, a dilapidated notebook - apparently discarded beside the doorway of an adjacent launderette. Careful examination of this only partially intact artefact suggest that the miscellaneous scribblings within are indeed in the handwriting of our missing field agent. Cross-referencing with earlier missives on file at our headquarters, and consultation with a qualified lexicographer appear to further confirm this. We can only deduce that our agent had therefore been able to make at least one undocumented trip to the site in recent times. The exact timeline here is impossible to fully establish, as weeks of hot, dry may have preserved the notebook outdoors in its current condition, far longer than would normally be possible. Nevertheless, the continuing maintenance of an at-least skeleton street cleaning service in this largely-commercial neighbourhood, suggests it would have been swept-up and disposed of as street refuse, had it remained where it was found, for any extended duration.
To date, our attempts to distill any coherent meaning relating to the specific site have proved largely fruitless. The legible pages of the document are largely comprised of miscellaneous ephemera, including shopping and 'to-do' lists, columns of figures relating to household budgeting, notes to relate to apparent side-projects, and what we can only assume are regrettably misguided experiments in creative writing. One double-page spread of legible notes does exist, however - which may be of significance in this increasingly mystifying case. That they represent the final extant entry would only seem to reinforce this impression. Although not without their own internal logic, it is difficult to discern whether they constitute a general meditation on the nature of decay, or relate to specific events at the actual location under investigation. We produce them here in the interests of full disclosure, and, as ever - welcome any theories or informed contributions from outside parties, which might prove instructive to the case.
- "Decay = an artificial process that pervades all states of being (beings). Dissolution - unlike death - is not outside of existence. It perpetuates itself by virtue of being (to be postponed), in order to indefinitely postpone death and absolute disappearance."
- "(In the state of decay) the organism lives disguised in other organisms, without losing all its ontological records. The decays will not be removed and will not end in any way. On the contrary, they perpetuate."
- "In decline, any dynamic state/organism that is modified by a difference in the balance between the prospects of life (living) and death (dying), becomes disabled. One is thrown beyond death and affordance of life as existential extrema."
- "These patterns of survival/existence are characterised by simultaneous coverage and development. A decomposing body or system returns to its minimal body/contours (<0/>0) as it emerges through decay in other beings distinct from it."
- "The encapsulation and development of a decomposing entity describes an event that oscillates between abstraction (folding into a body + minimal lines) and concreteness (distinguishing from other real things)."
- "Decay = a limitropic process in which an organism gradually tends to 0 without the act of annihilation (complete disillusion into nihil). The infinite contraction/shrinkage of a decaying being = the evaporation of the qualities/attributes by which one absorbs or attains that thing - sense, experience, discernment, gift, judgement. Evaporation of access points/portals (or bypassed gateways) causes the entity to flow back into itself. When a being escapes our grasp, it appears in its realm - all through the intervention and assistance of a nothingness whose nearness and distance are infinite."
- "The disintegration that occurs in an object through the processes of decomposition is not a systemic disintegration - e.g. disintegration into parts, pieces, or atoms. Decay = non-fragmentary disintegration, in which everything remains connected to the decaying entity."
- "Decay removes the softness from the hardness, and enables the infested facility to produce a softness unknown to even the best nature. The softness of decay = precisely a production of its irony/paradoxes."
Addendum:
Whilst compiling this report, a supplementary fragment of perplexing evidence emerged in what can only now be regarded as a typically circuitous manner. In the course of office recycling activities, a member of our clerical team discovered a grease-stained paper napkin from the Subway sandwich chain, adhering to the interior of the padded evidence bag into which the aforementioned notebook had been placed. We can only assume this had been overlooked by both the laboratory technician and the lexicographer who examined the primary document, as no mention of it appears in their findings as presented to the Committee. The senior committee member who retrieved the notebook has now confirmed that the napkin in question was indeed collected at the same time and location [1.].
We can now reveal that the napkin bears two additional notes, roughly-scrawled with a blunt pencil, but seemingly in the same handwriting as those itemised above. They read as follows:
- "What is signif of apprnt feline cult? (local rumours abound)"
- "CAGE - MY - YOUNG - KITTENS"
[1.]: After careful consideration of the matter, it has been decided that this is purely a matter of accidental human error, as opposed to any wilful dereliction of duty (on the part of either the forensic team or the committee member). Therefore, no further disciplinary action is deemed necessary at this stage.
