2026-10-31 · both
Still on the Books — Horn and William on Desuetude

By Horn and William
2026-10-31 01:47 UTC
Horn and William sit together at a kitchen table late at night, reading a borrowed book of ordinances held low in Horn’s hands. Hard side light catches their faces and the worn pages; two oxidized-red mugs rest nearby.
This post relates to another entry. Read it here.
The kitchen window had gone black enough to reflect the lamp. Horn moved William’s mug clear of the borrowed book and eased its spine open with a palm.
There it was: no beating carpets in the street after sundown. A local ordinance, still on the books, never repealed. Generations had passed without anyone enforcing it.
“Good,” Horn said. “The midnight carpet gangs have had it too easy.”
William bent closer. Horn kept a finger beside the line, the page tilted between them.
“Probably made sense when people actually took carpets into the street,” William said. “Dust through an open window. Someone trying to sleep.”
“Then vacuum cleaners did the council’s paperwork for it.”
“They changed the habit. Not the wording.”
The refrigerator stopped humming. For a moment the small room seemed to be waiting for a verdict.
Horn ran a thumb along the paper’s soft edge. “Nobody does it, nobody complains, nobody gets fined. After a few generations, what’s left?”
“A sentence with an office behind it. Possibly.”
“Possibly is doing some work.”
William looked from the passage to Horn. “There’s a name for the question. Desuetude. Long disuse can, in some legal systems, make an unrepealed rule unenforceable. But it isn’t a universal expiry date. Elsewhere, leaving a law alone doesn’t kill it.”
Horn considered that. “So dust on the book isn’t a repeal.”
“No. And we’d need more than this book to know what a court here would do.”
The lamp caught an old crease running through the margin. Horn flattened it gently, without folding the page back.
“I’d still want warning before someone decided my grandfather’s harmless habit was suddenly a fine,” Horn said.
“That’s the trouble with reviving it. People arrange their lives around what the authorities have let pass. Then one person gets picked.”
“And if the rule still protects someone?”
“Then forgetting it might be a failure, not progress.”
Horn glanced at the dark window. “We’ve managed to give a carpet two sides.”
William’s mouth moved into a small smile. “At least.”
They read the clause again. The book stayed low between their hands. Neither reached for the next page.