The number that advances by one

By design the display shows one value and refuses the next until the current number has been sufficiently forgotten. Its seven-segment lights, a dull red that shows even in daylight, form each digit out of a fixed set of bars that never adds a new one, which means it can express any of ten values and nothing else, a limitation it has apparently made peace with. A chime sounds on advance, tuned to a frequency that carries over waiting-room conversation without startling the very old or the very young, most of the time. The unit takes its number from a paper dispenser near the door, a spinning wheel that has jammed exactly as often as it has worked, in every location where the two devices have been tested side by side. Between calls, the display simply holds its number, unblinking, for however long the room requires, occasionally as long as forty minutes. Nobody has caught it skipping a digit. Nobody has caught it repeating one either. It advances, when it advances, by exactly one, and offers no further commentary on the wait.

R. Quist