lapses
what it holds
Lapses holds the count of intervals the record could not close. Each one is an interval that opened with an observation and then waited past the quiet window without a second observation arriving.1
The count is an integer and each unit has a row in the table below, with the block the interval opened at and the block it was lapsed at.
A lapse is a closure, not an omission. The interval leaves the open state and takes its place in the record with the length that was actually provable.
The field says how many times attention ran out, which is a different quantity from how much time ran out unattended.
what writes it
When no mark lands within the quiet window, anyone may call lapse.1 The call checks a single condition, which is whether the window has elapsed since the last mark.
The running interval is closed at its proven length. That length enters witnessed exactly as it would have done had a mark closed it.
The remainder, which is the part of the span the record could not prove, is written to dark. The two writes happen in the same call and always together.
The form index does not move. A lapse advances nothing and crosses no band, whatever the totals do as a result of it.
what it cannot do
Nothing is destroyed by a lapse. No balance moves, no field is cleared, and no prior interval is revisited.
No vault opens. The lapse instruction pays nothing to its caller and takes nothing from the treasury.
Lapses are the only part of the system that cannot be repaired by later behaviour. Marks resumed after a lapse apply from the block they land on, and the lapsed interval keeps the length it was closed at.
The count only goes up. There is no instruction that lowers it and no state in which it resets.
how to read it
A lapse is the record admitting a gap rather than guessing across it. That behaviour is what makes the rest of the numbers usable, because no total here contains an inferred span.
Read the count beside dark.1 A few lapses carrying a large amount of dark describe long unattended stretches; many lapses carrying little describe frequent brief ones.
Read it beside marks. Lapses rising while marks rise means the marks are arriving too far apart to close what they open.
The table lists each lapse with its proven length and the amount written to dark, so both readings can be taken directly.
| opened at | lapsed at | proven length | written to dark | caller |
|---|---|---|---|---|