the citizen

intake counter — 10:30

yrsa is behind the counter. she is sorting complaints using a system that involves six colors of post-it note, two rubber stamps, and a intuition forged over decades of absorbing human misery.

natasja sits at the adjacent desk, doing something on her laptop that could be bureau work or could be forwarding complaint metadata to a divorce lawyer. the screen faces the wall.

a citizen enters. he is roughly forty, wearing a fleece vest over a dress shirt. his energy is that of a man who has rehearsed this moment in the shower.

citizen: i need to file a formal complaint.

yrsa: without looking up form 11-B. counter to your left.

citizen: i’ve already filled one out. i brought it from home.

he produces a printed document. it is four pages. it is bound.

yrsa: looks at it. looks at him. you bound it.

citizen: i wanted it to be taken seriously.

yrsa: we take all complaints seriously.

natasja’s typing pauses for exactly one second, then resumes.

citizen: it’s about my neighbor. he’s been building something in his garden. i don’t know what it is. it’s large. it’s wooden. it has a door.

yrsa: a shed.

citizen: it’s not a shed. sheds don’t have windows on all four sides and a weather vane shaped like a rooster.

yrsa puts on her reading glasses. she reads the first page.

yrsa: you’ve included photographs.

citizen: thirty-seven photographs. different angles. different times of day. two at night with a flashlight.

tobias appears from the back office. he has been listening. he holds his coffee like a weapon.

tobias: sorry — you photographed your neighbor’s garden at night. with a flashlight.

citizen: for documentation purposes.

tobias: right. sits down at the counter next to yrsa. and what is your desired outcome?

citizen: i want it removed.

tobias: the structure.

citizen: yes.

tobias: which you cannot identify.

citizen: correct.

tobias: so you want us to order the removal of a structure of unknown purpose that may or may not be a shed, based on evidence you gathered by surveilling your neighbor’s garden at night.

citizen: when you say it like that—

tobias: i’m reading your document. page three. you’ve described the structure as, and i’m quoting, “an affront to the spatial dignity of the neighborhood.”

citizen: the spatial dignity is important to me.

tobias looks at yrsa. yrsa offers no expression. her face is a filing cabinet.

tobias: we’ll process your complaint. standard timeline is six to eight weeks.

citizen: six to eight weeks? he could finish it by then. he could be living in it.

tobias: if he’s living in it, that’s a different form. 14-C. residential use of non-residential structures.

citizen: can i take one now? in case?

yrsa: reaches under the counter and produces a form without looking 14-C.

the citizen takes both forms. he stands there a moment too long.

citizen: my name is bent, by the way. bent mogensen. i live on—

yrsa: birkevej 14. you filed about the trampoline in 2019 and the chickens in 2022. the chickens were legal.

bent opens his mouth. closes it. leaves.

pause.

tobias: spatial dignity.

natasja: still typing that’s a new one.

tobias: log it.

natasja: already did.

yrsa peels a yellow post-it note and writes something. she sticks it to bent’s complaint. the note says “12” in yrsa’s handwriting. nobody asks what 12 means.