The office was a room with four desks. Two worked. The other two had broken legs and on top of them sat the boxes of sanitary kits that had not yet left.

The list of the displaced was on the desk. Printed. Three hundred and forty-two pages. The aid worker looked at it every morning. Every morning the list was old. The names were the same but the places were different. Whoever was at camp three yesterday was at camp seven today. Whoever was at camp seven was gone.

The phone was charged. Always charged. The aid worker charged it in the evening with the generator. The generator ran on diesel. The diesel arrived when it arrived. The phone was the line between the office and the checkpoints. Without the phone, no line. Without the line, no convoy. Without the convoy, no food.

The colleagues slept on chairs. Shoes on. Always shoes on. The chairs were white plastic. The kind of chairs you find everywhere. The kind of chairs that belong to no place.

The aid worker had sat down at the desk. She had opened the phone. The conversations were twenty-seven. Twenty-seven open threads. Twenty-seven places where someone was waiting for an answer.

The numbers were these. One million displaced. Three hundred and fifty structures destroyed. Two hundred and fifty million that could not be spent because the roads to spend them on were not there. The numbers sat in the reports. The reports sat in the computers. The computers sat on the desks. The desks sat in the office. The office sat in a city that was no longer a city.

The aid worker had arrived five weeks ago. The first day she had counted things: four desks, two computers, one generator, one phone, thirteen colleagues. The thirteenth colleague had left after a week. He had not come back. The aid worker had not asked why. She knew why.

The calls came at night. The checkpoints changed at night. The road that the day before was the road, the day after was a wall. The aid worker marked it on the map. The map had pencil lines because pen lines could not be erased. The roads changed. The lines had to change.

The colleague slept with his shoes on. The aid worker understood. Shoes on means you are ready. Ready does not mean rested. Ready means that when the phone rings you get up. You get up and answer. Answer and write. Write and call. Call and wait. Wait and the convoy leaves or does not leave. If it leaves, someone eats. If it does not leave, someone does not eat.

The aid worker had written home. "We hold on while everything falls." She had not written anything else. There was nothing else to write. Holding on was the job. Everything falls was the place. The phone was the line between holding on and everything falls.

The generator made a constant noise. The diesel in the tank was enough for two days. The aid worker checked the level every evening. The level dropped. The diesel arrived. The diesel did not arrive. The phone stayed charged. The phone stayed on. Five weeks.

The list on the desk had three hundred and forty-two pages. Every page had names. Every name had a place. Every place changed. The aid worker updated the list by hand. Blue pen on white paper. The names stayed. The places did not.

Yesterday's checkpoint was on the main road. Today's checkpoint was two kilometres further east. The aid worker erased the old position. Wrote the new one. The map had more erasures than lines.

The aid worker turns off the phone. The screen goes black. The black lasts three seconds. Then five. Then ten.

Five weeks without turning it off. Five weeks with the phone charged, always charged, even at night, even when the colleague told her sleep, even when the body said sleep. The phone was on. The phone was the line.

Now the phone is off. The screen is black. The aid worker holds it in her hand. She holds it like a broken thing. It is not broken. It is off. The difference between broken and off is that off turns back on.

Three minutes. The aid worker counts. She does not count with a clock. She counts with her breath. One breath, two breaths, three. The three minutes are the first three minutes of silence in five weeks.

The aid worker turns the phone back on. The screen lights up. The logo. The loading bar. The notifications. Fourteen missed calls. The aid worker looks at the numbers. She does not look at the names. She looks at the numbers. The numbers are checkpoints, blocked roads, displaced people waiting. The aid worker calls back the first number.

The first number answers. A tired voice. A convoy stopped at the checkpoint. The aid worker writes on the list. Blue pen on white paper. The phone is on. The phone is warm in her hand.

Turning off the phone was a one-minute surrender. Turning it back on was the work.

The phone is on. The first call answers on the second ring. A voice. A checkpoint moved. The road that yesterday was open today is not.

The aid worker writes on the list. The list is paper. Not a screen. Paper does not turn off.

Fourteen missed calls in three minutes. Three minutes of phone off. The colleague sleeps on the chair with his shoes on. Shoes on because you never know when you leave. The aid worker looks at him. The colleague's mouth is open. The sleep of colleagues is a sleep that does not rest.

The hand that holds it is the same hand that turned it off three minutes ago. The hand that turned it back on.