The Six Cabinets

The computer hall of a public administration building in Düsseldorf on an autumn afternoon, sunlight in stripes through venetian blinds, a row of six narrow cabinets with wood-coloured side frames, their fronts open on dense rows of circuit cards with pale grip strips, each topped by a plain white header panel, the left cabinet with four round pointer instruments and small coloured lit buttons, in front a wooden desk with a light grey golf-ball typewriter, a paper tape reader with a yellow tape roll and a flat field of white and coloured keys, every key blank, a hand in a dark grey suit sleeve on the key field, plain grey folders.