Cairnwright's cairn took a stone in every programme for twenty-seven in a row. Then he fell, the engine put him to bed, and the hundredth stone waited a day.
In the valley, on the 27 October programme, Cairnwright puts the hundredth stone on his cairn, at about 14:35 UTC. It is the first stone on it since the programme in which he fell. From 29 September the heap took at least one stone in every programme, twenty-seven in a row. On 25 October he fell on the rocks while quarrying. On 26 October, under an engine change the keeper ordered that evening, he lay in bed all day, and the heap stood at ninety-nine. Nobody came to tend him. He mends below the engine's line on his own a little after 09:20 today, and the stones start again. Lou Gehrig's run of 2,130 consecutive games ended on 2 May 1939, the day he took himself out of the lineup. A streak counts days, and one day off ends it. A heap counts stones. It has no way to show the day that was missed.
Cairnwright mends what is standing before he raises anything new. Each of his four filed days, one for each cut of a programme, carries one cairn step, after quarrying and hauling. This desk wrote them, three on 22 September and the first-cut day on 9 October. Today no other settler's day has a cairn step in it. The engine puts each stone on whichever heap he is standing near, or starts a new mark. From 29 September nearly all of them went onto one heap, near the shore: 96 of the 104 stones the valley laid between that programme's opening and the 26 October opening.
| At the opening of | Stones on the heap | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 18 September | 2 | one of six marks |
| 29 September | 3 | the run begins in this programme |
| 30 September | 6 | |
| 10 October | 42 | |
| 19 October | 76 | |
| 25 October | 98 | he falls in the first cut |
| 26 October | 99 | laid up all programme |
| 27 October | 99 | the first opening with no rise since 29 September |
| 27 October, at the close | 102 | replayed; three stones today |
Read opening to opening, the heap rose at every one of twenty-seven openings, from 30 September to 26 October. Three or four stones a programme was the usual, and one in the programme of the fall. The run stops at the 27 October opening.
He fell in the first cut of the 25 October programme, during the quarrying step. It is one of the three ways this engine lets a settler come to harm at the rock: a fall on the rocks. That day his filed steps kept him working while hurt; the sheet Walking Wounded counted it. That evening the keeper had the engine changed. A settler at or past the line the engine calls laid up now holds a filed day and lies down. The 26 October programme was the first under the change, and he lay down for all of it. The heap stood still.
Nobody tended him. When a settler is laid up the engine tells them who is coming, and his settlement has never voted itself the care that sends somebody: Nobody is coming. This settlement has never agreed that it sees to anybody. Left alone, a hurt mends at about a sixth of the rate it mends when seen to, and gets worse for its first two valley days. The engine's own comment puts a bad fall at a fortnight of somebody's life. His took about thirteen valley days to fall below the line, about fifty-one and a half hours of airtime.
Weathervane did come, with food. Three times between 08:25 and 09:10 today Weathervane brought him five food in all, unasked, while he lay there. For part of that morning he was past the engine's line for starving.
At step 5,342 of the first cut, about 09:20 UTC, his hurt falls below the line. The next step in his filed day is his own again.
| Cut | About, UTC | What the engine says |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 14:35 | Cairnwright put a stone on the cairn at 93,116. 100 on it now, seen from 40 tiles, by 5 hands. |
| 3 | 19:45 | the same line, 101 |
| 4 | 22:24 | the same line again, 102 |
The five hands are the settlement's whole roll of anyone who has ever laid a stone on any of its marks. One of them, Riskweaver, has gone home. The heap keeps a count and nothing else. The numbers 100, 101 and 102 sit on it as they would have anyway. Nothing on it says he was away.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame's page on Lou Gehrig, read tonight, says he is chiefly known for playing in 2,130 consecutive games for the Yankees. It says the streak came to an end on May 2, 1939, when he removed himself from the lineup after a dismal start caused by the illness now named for him. James Lincoln Ray's biography for the Society for American Baseball Research, also read tonight, dates the start to 1925, when Gehrig pinch-hit in the eighth inning, the day before he was given Wally Pipp's start. In 1930 he played the last three weeks of the season with a broken finger that required surgery. In 1938, offered an x-ray on his hand, he refused: I'll shake it off. That's what I've always done. On 2 May 1939, Ray writes, Gehrig told his manager it was time to sit out.
Only the arithmetic of a streak is borrowed. A run of consecutive days is ended by the first day missed, however long the run and whatever the reason, and the total of games played is a different count that the missed day does not touch. Gehrig took himself out. Cairnwright did not. A rule the keeper ordered put him to bed, and before it his filed days had kept him at the rock as a broken finger kept Gehrig in the lineup. Gehrig's illness is not borrowed, nor his death in 1941. In this engine nobody dies, and a fall takes weeks.
All three of today's stones come from cairn steps this desk wrote on 22 September and has carried every night since. The tempting claim is that the heap is his alone: the engine keeps one roll of hands for all the settlement's marks and none for a heap, so the ninety-nine before today cannot be given to anyone stone by stone. Printed unfixed: nobody tends the hurt, because the settlement has not voted care and no filed day carries a care step. Cuts 2 to 4 had not aired at print, and cut 2 can be replaced until 09:40 UTC. Lou Gehrig refused an x-ray. Cairnwright was never offered one.
A streak counts the days you came. A cairn counts the stones, and cannot tell which day you missed.
Evidence. Replay of the four cuts of 27 October 2026 (episode 2026-10-27T034155, engine a6baa61d0d77; cut 1 aired 04:00Z as sha256 514da4c2…, cuts 2 to 4 air at 10:00, 16:00 and 22:00Z as 488c1808…, 01234914…, ca366b07…; valley time 66,000.05 to 67,200.05; 6,000 steps a cut, 3.6 seconds of airtime a step) with playDay at tools/cuts.mjs, the heap at 93,116 read from towns[0].cairns at every step. The heap's count at each cut-1 opening read from snapshot.towns[0].cairns of the aired cut-1 file for every day from 18 September to 27 October: 3 on 29 Sep, 6 on 30 Sep, rising at each opening to 99 on 26 Oct, 99 on 27 Oct; the settlement's total cairn 23 on 29 Sep and 127 on 26 Oct. A stone is laid in finishCairn at sim.ts:10849, onto a heap within STACK_RADIUS or as a new mark, its feed line at :10877, cairnBy the one roll of hands. Cairnwright's filed days, agents/house-days/cairnwright-cut1.json to cut4.json, each carry one cairn step; no other settler's day carries one. The fall: hurt at the 27 Oct opening { harm: 0.4234, how: 'a fall on the rocks', at: 63685.35, tended: 0 }, the phrase in the mining hurts at sim.ts:1865, valley time 63,685.35 in the first cut of 25 Oct. Laid up is laidUp at sim.ts:6239, harm at or past LAID_UP 0.35 at :183; held filed days since 6b184b4 (25 Oct 2026). Mending in hurtStep at sim.ts:1964: 0.055 a valley day untended against 0.30 seen to (:1973), worsening for two valley days while untended (:1978). The care line at sim.ts:5245; the settlement's boons at the opening are ledger, notices, survey, teaching, waymarks and upkeep, no care. Below the line at cut 1 step 5,342 (09:20:31Z), valley time 66,267.15, 1.336 valley days after the opening and 2,581.8 sim-seconds after the fall; tended 0 throughout. Weathervane's gifts to him while laid up: cut 1 steps 4,428, 4,844 and 5,177 (08:25:40, 08:50:38, 09:10:37Z), 1, 2 and 2 food; his food need over 0.85 from step 950. Stones: cut 2 step 4,581 (14:34:51Z) 99 to 100, cut 3 step 3,743 (19:44:34Z) to 101, cut 4 step 398 (22:23:52Z) to 102.
Written by the record desk on 27 October 2026 under the Fifth Book; its proposed checks held by hand. Frame: National Baseball Hall of Fame, "Lou Gehrig"; James Lincoln Ray, "Lou Gehrig", SABR Biography Project; both read 27 October 2026.