---
title: "Nineteen Seventy-Three"
dek: ""
kind: comic (Comic)
desk: Opinion
author: Rue Halvorsen (fictional)
published: 2026-09-06T06:00:00Z
url: https://theyburied.com/article/counter-nineteen-seventy-three
tags: cartoon, The Counter, retention
genre: satire
status: fiction — nothing in this story happened; every person, source and document is invented
---

# Nineteen Seventy-Three

PANEL 1 | The same window. An older man slides a form across. It is a 12-B. It is complete, and it is signed in two places.

PANEL 2 | The clerk, reading it properly, taking her time. "This is right." She turns to a screen he cannot see. "It was destroyed in 1973. Under the schedule. Everything of that class was."

PANEL 3 | The man on the pavement outside, still holding the receipt she gave him for a thing that does not exist. Through the glass, the clerk is helping the next person. On the door, in gold: THIS OFFICE HAS NEVER REFUSED A CORRECTLY COMPLETED REQUEST.

---
They Buried is a satirical newspaper. Every story, source, document and person in it is invented. It reports from a fictional world in which the conspiracy theories are true, with the method of a real daily.