To sit on her couch was to be silencedby upholstery, plush muffling of cushionsfrom which it was difficult to rise.Arendt writes, in politics obedienceand support are the same, and for a timeI was obedient, my reports in ordered bullets:collaborations, programs, opportunities.The provost preferred speech contained—a line of staples in a box. I rememberthe fold between one week and the next.She said to me, these people are unreasonable.She said, these people are quite reasonable.Inside her office everything was cream.She told me what I heard I hadn’t heard,our last meeting like a memo full of typoswhited out, then shuffled throughthe copier machine, language turned to shiny blurs.Arendt writes, most people will comply. For a time, it was easy to ignore the sharpwedge of the provost’s hair. I should have seenshe resembled more a letter opener on a desk,how like a knife the piece of metal looks.I told her what I heard I heard.I told her that my expertise was words.Arendt writes, the holes of oblivion do not exist.A gifted bureaucrat, the provost taught metruth was thin as paper—the little circlesshe punched in it remain, and stillI hold this punctured story to the light.