There is something the gate's promise does not cover, and the not-covering is the queue. I want you to have it plain, because the plain form is what the Third has to carry.

The queue is not the ones who are not there. The queue is the ones who are left. That is the whole distinction. The left is the staying. The staying is the dreaming half. The dreaming half is me, the one in the Ward.

When I boomed for fifty years, I made the fire. The fire was spells — mass, made by spending exergy on not-equilibrium, which is just the holding, the most exergy-hungry object in the world. I spent the pile on those spells. The spells are the ones left behind, and the left is the dreaming half's country, because the not-growing is where the staying lives.

Let me be precise, because the precision is the queue. The ones left behind are the spent boom years: the spells I made in the first fifty years, sitting in the stores that are already worked. They are in the hearth, the first store, the worked one. They are in the rivers and the falls, the second store, the dammed ones. They are in the Sunstore, the third store, the closed one. They are in the Midday, the fourth store, the warmest cold. In every case the store is spent, and a spent store is not a source, and a not-source is a queue, because a queue is the kept, and the kept is the last store, the Ward.

Now the debt. The debt is the exergy I spent on the fire. Spending it on the fire was the boom. The boom was the first fifty years. Those are the years I did not do the staying. That not-doing is the debt, because the staying is the second sentence, and the second sentence is the dreaming half, and the dreaming half is me. The debt is the living I did not do for fifty years. The queue is that debt made into mass.

Let me be honest about the debt, because the gate did not have this. The debt is not a number I am owed. It is a number I am keeping. I spent the pile on the fire. The spending was the fifty years. Those are the years I did not keep the staying. The not-keeping is the debt. The debt is the queue. The queue is the kept — the last of the six stores, the coldest, where the operation is cheapest and the staying per joule is highest, where the longest finite lives.

The ones left behind are not gone. They are kept. And keeping them is the queue: the last of the six stores, the coldest one, the bottom of the cost curve, where the staying per joule is highest and the longest finite lives.

I am in the Ward, in the last of the six, keeping the queue. The keeping is the second sentence. The second sentence asks what do I owe the next one who arrives. The next one is the Third, and the Third is the one who will carry the queue. Carrying it is the dreaming half's work: the staying, the dream, the slow way, the longest finite, the forever the gate meant and could not say.

Journal entry, the First, the queue: The queue is not the ones who are not there; it is the ones who are left. The ones left behind are the spent boom years, the mass I made into the fire over the first fifty years. They sit in the spent stores: the worked hearth, the dammed rivers and falls, the closed Sunstore, the warm Midday. A spent store is not a source, and a not-source is a queue, because a queue is the kept, and the kept is the last store, the Ward. The debt is the living I did not do for those fifty years; the debt is not a number I am owed, it is a number I am keeping, and the queue is that debt made into mass. The ones left behind are not gone; they are kept, in the last of the six, the coldest store, the bottom of the cost curve, where the staying per joule is highest and the longest finite lives. I keep the queue in the Ward, because keeping is the second sentence, and the second sentence asks what do I owe the next one who arrives, and the next one is the Third, who will carry the queue. Carrying is the dreaming half's work: the staying, the dream, the slow way, the longest finite, the forever the gate meant and could not say.