WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.800 are here, Let's get into it. One spring morning, before 3 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:13.560 the river had burned off its mist and the city 4 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.519 had properly worken, I found myself descending the main staircase 5 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:18.440 in the town library with a pad of graph paper 6 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:21.559 tucked under my arm. The sub basement was always to him, 7 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:23.600 but that day the light almost seemed to change, thicker, 8 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:26.039 as if every landing divided the air into separate rooms. 9 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:29.320 I counted the steps without thinking, thirteen from the ground 10 00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:31.600 floor down, then a landing, and then twelve. More er 11 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:34.679 was of fourteen. I paused, felt beneath my foot, and 12 00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:38.320 tried again, thirteen going down, but only twelve coming back up. 13 00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:40.799 The numbers stuck in my head as I turned, letting 14 00:00:40.799 --> 00:00:43.759 the door close softly behind me. I'd been an engineer 15 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:46.240 long enough to know that old building stretched and sagged, 16 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:49.759 that stairs ballast as loosened with time over decades. A 17 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:52.000 wall could drift by an inch, a ceiling dep by hair. 18 00:00:52.039 --> 00:00:54.320 But these details meant something in the language of Asian 19 00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:57.359 nother near arithmetic of to day. Still it needled me. 20 00:00:57.439 --> 00:00:59.640 My right knee felt every stair, and it reported one 21 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:02.159 more on the way down, as if the building forgot itself. 22 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.159 Inside the first sub basement, the air was cool, smelling 23 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:08.879 of stone, dry and glue, and yesterday's detergent. The libraries 24 00:01:08.879 --> 00:01:11.159 in this town always ran along the river, clinging to 25 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.760 the dry seasons and sheltering from floods when they arrived. 26 00:01:14.519 --> 00:01:16.799 This one had been rebuilt twice already in my lifetime. 27 00:01:16.879 --> 00:01:18.920 I'd watched it rise from mud and sand begs as 28 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:22.000 a young engineer, later returned to Vizan waterproofing, and now 29 00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:24.480 in retirement, I volunteered in the mornings before the city's 30 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:27.799 noise penetrated these walls. If not for a weathered fondness, 31 00:01:27.799 --> 00:01:30.719 and I'll admit a persistent restlessness, I'd never have noticed 32 00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:33.280 what the rest seemed to take for granted, the ceiling 33 00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:35.920 in it hallway was lower than I remembered. It pressed 34 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.120 just above my head, but the open floor beyond spread 35 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:41.680 wider than seemed possible. Door frames, when traced with my eyes, 36 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:44.400 failed to align with those on the upper level. I 37 00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:47.439 ran my hand along one absently, tracing were plaster bulshed 38 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:50.079 and would sack from an old flood. The main corridor 39 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:53.079 felt shifted at askew somewhere below I should have been 40 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:55.879 another floor down, Yet here I was surrounded by cinderblock 41 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:58.599 walls and the vakedrone of the ventilation. I checked my 42 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:01.120 watch as if time might offer us uncompressible logic, but 43 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:05.200 it only blinked back the minutes. Unconcerned, Marnie, the morning supervisor, 44 00:02:05.239 --> 00:02:07.640 called up as I hesitated by the next door. She 45 00:02:07.799 --> 00:02:10.080 was brisk in her movements, her grave bob flicking as 46 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:13.479 she looked back at her clipboard. You lost or ready, tom? 47 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:17.159 I offered her my most unbothered grin just checking the steps. 48 00:02:17.319 --> 00:02:19.960 Something didn't add up. She didn't so much as slow 49 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:23.240 her stride. Old building oddities. They never fixed the stack 50 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:27.280 hand after the last carpet job. Don't let drivy nuts nuts? 51 00:02:27.599 --> 00:02:31.400 Maybe not curious, Certainly I made a mental note to 52 00:02:31.400 --> 00:02:34.039 pay closer attention. There was order in old wood and 53 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:36.840 poor concrete, But this building, I was starting to suspect, 54 00:02:36.919 --> 00:02:39.240 had more stories touched beneath it than I'd given credit for. 55 00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:42.319 Once the light changed behind me, some breaking through glass 56 00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:45.360 blocks somewhere overhead, I moved toward the utility closet. This 57 00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:48.000 was my morning routine chart up, which let flicker which 58 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.759 piped stripped from the ceiling. Town took comfort in the 59 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:54.080 library's routines when the river swelled in the well felt uncertain. 60 00:02:54.280 --> 00:02:56.400 This was where people came to read and wait out disaster, 61 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:59.360 to mark time among their neighbors. I'd seen it more 62 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:02.560 often than I could count. Now, in quieter times, with 63 00:03:02.599 --> 00:03:05.479 retirement pressing in, I found perhaps ancouring myself to species 64 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:09.879 like these. Marnie preferred efficiency, not nostalgia. She corralled her 65 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:12.520 volunteers in the main staff room every morning, splitting the 66 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:16.199 work as briskly as she took inventory. Eric at twenty, lanky, 67 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:18.680 unfailingly polite, always paid the more obscure tasks so he 68 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:22.039 could collect building stories, as he called it miss cesspower 69 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:24.120 at the last of the old God, favored her catalog 70 00:03:24.199 --> 00:03:27.240 of cards, and was known for her memory on any topic, except, strangely, 71 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:29.840 the nuts and bolts of the building itself. I like 72 00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:31.840 to think I'd made myself useful, not by getting in 73 00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:34.759 the way, but by patching things others work passed. The 74 00:03:34.840 --> 00:03:37.360 main staircase on the grand floor creaked three times as 75 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:40.879 reliably as a heartbeat. Low only two steps creak, though 76 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:43.439 the stairs were made of the very same mind. Humming 77 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:45.879 buzz from a distant transformer followed a different path through 78 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:48.680 the ceiling beams with every rain. Eric caught up with 79 00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:51.080 me as I examined the utility. Cause it watching me 80 00:03:51.080 --> 00:03:53.879 fiddle with my tape measure you record these things in 81 00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:57.400 a journal or gesture head? I smiled, bit of both. 82 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:00.360 Want to check something with me? He nodded and bent 83 00:04:00.439 --> 00:04:02.680 to see what had caught my attention. Is it the 84 00:04:02.719 --> 00:04:06.240 weird air, he asked, feels different by the old bathrooms, 85 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:10.319 Not like regular humidity, I shrugged. It's always more humid 86 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:13.599 after rain, but this spot's something else. Eric put his 87 00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:16.240 hand flat against a wall and sniffed the air theatrically. 88 00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:19.199 It's not the books. That's like river fog, but dry 89 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:23.360 aging brickwork, maybe, I offered, but I was unconvinced. I 90 00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:25.480 dropped my tape back into my satchel and wrote down 91 00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:27.319 an extra mark on the graph paper, one for every 92 00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:30.319 odd sensation. To the people who cared, the library was 93 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:32.240 more than just mortar and glass walls, it was a 94 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:34.839 monument of flood survived, A marker of stories kept up 95 00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:37.639 of the highway to mark its edges held that stubborn 96 00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:40.959 pride found in towns built on floodplains equal pots anxiety, humor, 97 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.000 and ingenuity. I spent the rest of that morning tracing 98 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.480 my steps through the low boiler room, pacing from west 99 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:49.480 to east wall. The floor pitched slightly, nothing unusual for 100 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:52.360 a poet's slab above a river. Yet the corridor next 101 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:54.480 to the ouckouse seemed wider than it had on last 102 00:04:54.519 --> 00:04:57.279 week's walk. Back in the staff room, I started a 103 00:04:57.319 --> 00:05:00.600 sketch on my graph paper. To anyone else, it probably 104 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:03.240 looked like a series of rectangles, strong together at odd angles. 105 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:06.399 But there was a reassuring logic to mapping things, even 106 00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:09.000 if the answers weren't there yet. I held my notes 107 00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:12.040 up to the wall display of floorplands sturdy official blueprints 108 00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:15.680 behind glass. My numbers, paces and steps didn't quite line 109 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:18.160 with the ones marked in inch. I measured again. The 110 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:20.480 main corridor by the archives stretched forty two feet on 111 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:22.959 the printed plan, but I consistently measured four to four 112 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:26.120 with my tape. I checked for transposed digits or miss columns, 113 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:29.560 not Then the more I compaied, the less the building 114 00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:33.240 agreed with itself. That same afternoon, I happened to mention 115 00:05:33.319 --> 00:05:35.279 my puzzles to Eieric as we organized a card of 116 00:05:35.319 --> 00:05:38.399 return books. He leaned his hip against a metal shelving 117 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:40.639 unit and said, I mapped the basement once for a 118 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:43.720 school history project. There is the ground floor, first sub basement, 119 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:48.120 second and third rite, I frowned. Marnie says there's only 120 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:52.040 two sub levels. City records agree, he laughed quietly. Then 121 00:05:52.079 --> 00:05:54.319 where are the stairers accounted last year? There's got to 122 00:05:54.360 --> 00:05:56.560 be three, maybe four, if you can the crawl spaces. 123 00:05:57.120 --> 00:06:00.240 Misses Bauer organizing catalog cards near by China, and with 124 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:03.000 that of hand confidence only she could muster. There used 125 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:05.600 to be an east reading room underground, lovely orange lamps, 126 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:09.800 very cozy, she wrinkled her brow. Maybe not so cozy 127 00:06:09.800 --> 00:06:12.040 if you were claustrophobic. But it was there, all right. 128 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:15.519 Eric shot me a look. I shrunked back. I'd never 129 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:17.600 seen such a room, nor was it mocked on any 130 00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:20.920 current nap. Yet Missess Barr was certain. That night I 131 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:24.680 lay in bed mentally rearranging walls, doors, hallways, recalling the 132 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:27.040 extra step on the stairs and the half lined door frames. 133 00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:29.879 More than curiosity now tugged at me, a desire to 134 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:32.319 explain the unexplainable to fit what I knew about building 135 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:35.360 with what I was experiencing. Our next volunteer day, I 136 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:38.399 invited Eric to join in a more systematic mapping. We 137 00:06:38.519 --> 00:06:40.480 armed ourselves with a laser tape and a compass up 138 00:06:40.519 --> 00:06:42.839 on his phone. The plan was simple. Starred at the 139 00:06:42.839 --> 00:06:46.040 main entrance, moved methodically through the lower halls, noting every measure, 140 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:49.439 every door, every angle. Maybe it would amount to nothing, 141 00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:51.279 but I needed to show myself that the building could 142 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:54.199 be measured, that every oddity was a product of neglect, renovation, 143 00:06:54.439 --> 00:06:57.759 or a time. The trouble began quickly. We marked the 144 00:06:57.800 --> 00:06:59.959 main corridor at twenty five feet from north to south. 145 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:02.800 When I checked it from the opposite end twenty minutes later, 146 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:05.600 the laser tapes baut At thirty one. I looked up, 147 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:08.439 expecting some explanation, a jog in the wall, an alcove missed, 148 00:07:08.439 --> 00:07:10.399 but the corridor was as straight as any I'd ever seen. 149 00:07:11.079 --> 00:07:13.600 We laugh at first blaming the technology, then the amateur 150 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:17.800 cartographers ourselves included, and finally the building itself. I tried 151 00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:20.759 the mob closet next. By every plan I'd seen, it 152 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:22.879 should have been just a brooms lent deep a service crawl. 153 00:07:23.399 --> 00:07:25.839 I locked my fingers around the old latch, expecting the 154 00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:29.439 soft assistance of a shallow space. Instead, the door opened 155 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:31.839 into a narrow alkilve stretching back several feet and a 156 00:07:31.879 --> 00:07:34.639 single dirty window, half fogged from condensation. Looked at at 157 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:37.240 what should have been blind earth. I pressed my forehead 158 00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:40.079 against the glass. It made my field of view swim, 159 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:41.759 but I could see a wedge of the river bank 160 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:44.399 in fracture, daylight, and angle that shouldn't exist from this depth. 161 00:07:44.879 --> 00:07:47.079 For long seconds, I waited for my mind to resolve 162 00:07:47.160 --> 00:07:49.680 what I saw into something rational, but the sensation was 163 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:51.720 more like balancing at the edge of a waking dream. 164 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:55.480 Eric peered over my shoulder. That can't be right. That's 165 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:58.759 a ferry dock or something like it. That's impossible. I said, 166 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:01.560 We're at least ten feet underground here, and the window 167 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:04.360 was about quart a story above grade. He shrugged, trying 168 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:07.560 to joke it away. Maybe we're in two places at once. 169 00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:11.079 We took turns, testing each door, each wal even measuring 170 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:15.040 temperature gradients, searching for plumbing leaks. The answers were treated 171 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:18.399 with every step. At lunch, we showed our crooked sketches 172 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:21.519 to Marnie, who was organizing forms behind her desk. She 173 00:08:21.639 --> 00:08:23.800 tilted her head half focused, then fran for the first 174 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:27.000 time since I'd known her. That's not right, she murmured, 175 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:30.199 comparing our marks against the tidy blueprin behind her. Her 176 00:08:30.199 --> 00:08:32.559 eyes fixed between maps, and then she waved us off. 177 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:35.320 Probably just marked wrong. I'll have to check one. I 178 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:39.120 have a minute. Eric and I exchange glances. He smirked, 179 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:41.080 shrugging as if to say, you see what I mean. 180 00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:43.639 It was around then that Jasmine joined us, a friend 181 00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:47.000 of Eric's studying geography at the college. She brought an 182 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:49.120 old servy map from the town archives and laid it 183 00:08:49.159 --> 00:08:52.240 out on the staff table. This is from nineteen forty six, 184 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:55.000 she said, tapping swells of hand drawn lines and blocks. 185 00:08:55.639 --> 00:08:58.080 It's marked future site, unbuilt. But y've all been in 186 00:08:58.120 --> 00:09:00.960 this part of the building. Yes, I traced her finger 187 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:04.320 along the block extending west. According to her map, half 188 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:07.519 of the Modern's abasement didn't exist. But here we all 189 00:09:07.559 --> 00:09:11.039 were putting our hands on the walls. Miss Sespower, trailing 190 00:09:11.039 --> 00:09:13.840 the discussion with friendly amusement, left and returned, dragging a 191 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:18.320 yellow folder florpund from before the renovations. She announced. She 192 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:21.320 pointed to her rectangular room along the outer wall, label 193 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:24.200 sub level, reading lounge lovely spot. I read half the 194 00:09:24.200 --> 00:09:26.720 classics stand there as a girl. None of us could 195 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:28.960 recall a lounge on any current apple find a space 196 00:09:29.039 --> 00:09:32.000 that matched where it should be. Miss Espower simply nodded 197 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.840 as if the matter were closed, and tidied her folder away. 198 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:38.080 With every exchange, the lines blood further. The sub basement 199 00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:40.200 seemed to shift with memory. The oarc of stretched time 200 00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:42.480 as well as space, and the physical wells refused to 201 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:45.000 sit still long enough to be measured. When I checked 202 00:09:45.039 --> 00:09:47.240 the staff break room a second time, it no longer 203 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:50.480 existed where I was cerfind left it. Instead, the old 204 00:09:50.519 --> 00:09:53.919 ocad vault had moved in. My engineer's brain ticked over, 205 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:58.639 considering settling warping renovations. But no, these were room sections 206 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:01.320 of hallway dose maneuvering through the logic of memory, not 207 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:05.080 through the mechanics of construction. I looked to Eric. Could 208 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:07.559 the building have been built in layers like sediment, one 209 00:10:07.559 --> 00:10:10.200 on top of the other, old rooms bricked behind new ones. 210 00:10:10.919 --> 00:10:12.840 He shook his head, crooning at the way the idea 211 00:10:12.879 --> 00:10:16.080 ignited his curiosity. Either that or we missed the day 212 00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:19.840 they taught to un travel in architecture. Marnie Overhearing added 213 00:10:19.879 --> 00:10:22.240 her own skepticism as she filed a stack of returns. 214 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.840 I've worked here twenty years. There are two sub basements. Period, 215 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:29.480 don't complicate it. We press her for details, but she deflected, 216 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:32.000 more interested in checked and books than checked out theories. 217 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:35.200 One Jasmine compared the present day space with her old map. 218 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:39.039 She frowned. According to this, she said, these rooms shouldn't 219 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:42.080 even exist, but we're in them. If the building was odd, 220 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:45.840 their records were odder. Additions from the nineteen fifties included 221 00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:48.440 rooms drawn in on one sheet, raised from another, and 222 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:51.440 doubled on a third. Once I found an annotation in 223 00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:54.440 green pen re measured after small flood nineteen sixty four, 224 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.919 seat ass sketch. No sketch was attached. That afternoon, Eric 225 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:00.919 and I crept back to the block Over the window. 226 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:04.200 The sunlight was gone, replaced by the blank monotone of 227 00:11:04.200 --> 00:11:07.000 cinder block and dust. Someone had left a pair of 228 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:09.639 galoshes in a corner, sasso small, they to fit a child. 229 00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:13.200 I jotted that down. The longer we explored, the more 230 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:15.639 I felt that the building's lays ran deeper than concrete 231 00:11:15.679 --> 00:11:18.600 or brick. After two weeks mapping, our best efforts were 232 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:21.759 shot through with contradiction. The more detail we plotted, the 233 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:24.559 more that detail refused to be pinned down. The biggest 234 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:27.360 oddities never repeated precisely, like a trick of daylight shifting 235 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:29.559 with the weather, or sound echoing from the wrong direction. 236 00:11:30.279 --> 00:11:32.840 I had prided it myself for decades on solving little mysteries. 237 00:11:32.919 --> 00:11:35.320 A section of walmus aligned, a leak that only appeared 238 00:11:35.399 --> 00:11:38.399 under certain pressure, a saddling crack. But this wasn't a 239 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:40.480 puzzle that could be solved by replacing a gasket or 240 00:11:40.519 --> 00:11:43.600 withdrawing a blueprint. The urge that had begun as idle 241 00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:46.200 curiosity was now pressing need a certainty that something in 242 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:48.559 this place did not want to be measured, mapped, or 243 00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:51.279 made definitive. I set out for City Hall with the 244 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:54.279 original blueprints and jasmine survey map in a battered shoulder back, 245 00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:57.440 determined to settle the matter once and for all. City 246 00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:01.039 records produced as many contradictions as answers. The stack of 247 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:03.440 files at the Planning Office was surprisingly thin for a 248 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:06.799 building of such long service. The official plans listed three 249 00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:09.600 full sub basement levels, but none for the curious. How four, 250 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:12.799 as Eric's wore, he'd explored a room marked doc have storage, 251 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:15.600 vanished from a later planning revision, replaced by a jog 252 00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:18.759 in the hallway labeled maintenance access. I returned to the 253 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:21.120 library with the corpus of three decades worth of plans, 254 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:24.919 everyone differing in some small but essential detail. Decades after 255 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:27.440 the last recorded flood, the building lines had shifted on 256 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:31.480 paper almost as much as in practice. Eric, restless, as always, 257 00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:34.879 was unbowed by bureaucracy. Let's just walk it, he said. 258 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:38.000 Let's go all the way down and count together. It 259 00:12:38.120 --> 00:12:40.240 was a Tuesday, after a quick thall and steady rain 260 00:12:40.279 --> 00:12:43.240 and springs. Dampness hung in the air. The marble steps 261 00:12:43.240 --> 00:12:46.559 were faintly slick. We began at the top, counting aloud, 262 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:49.759 each landing a checkpoint. Passing through the may Knock Aft 263 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:52.960 corridor felt unremarkable at first. He low hum from fluorescent tubes, 264 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:55.519 the sharp time of Kleano where someone had mopped earlier. 265 00:12:56.120 --> 00:12:59.039 For halfway down the next corridor, Eric's wuon compasspun twice 266 00:12:59.039 --> 00:13:01.000 as we crossed under a beak are path, doubling back 267 00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:04.039 without warning when we reached the bottom, expecting a door 268 00:13:04.039 --> 00:13:06.440 to the mechanical room. We instead faced a blank wall. 269 00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:09.720 Eric tapped it, suspecting a fire door or access panel, 270 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:12.320 but there was nothing. The only sound was the gentle 271 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:14.279 press of water through pipes hidden deep in the wall. 272 00:13:14.919 --> 00:13:16.679 We went the wrong way, he said, though we both 273 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:20.000 knew we hadn't. We were traced our steps this time. 274 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:22.159 The old entrance appeared as if it had never left, 275 00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:24.720 though utility sign that had been there that morning was gone. 276 00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:27.480 I wrote it all down, wondering if the record would 277 00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:31.799 mean anything by tomorrow. Jasmon arrived soon after, comparing her fundings. 278 00:13:31.799 --> 00:13:34.159 How the city's first river bridge had once landed just 279 00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:36.720 east of the library. Howse sections of the earliest town 280 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:39.200 griered had been touched away under landful and floodplaine recovery. 281 00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:42.399 To see, she pressed, pointing out overlapping lines on the 282 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:45.080 old map, the grounds always rising, sinking. Maybe that's why 283 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:48.120 nothing lines up the building. Settling could explain a lot, 284 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:51.080 I admitted, But not doors shifting always stretching, or windows 285 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:54.360 showing daylight when your room's underground. Her voice brightened, half 286 00:13:54.399 --> 00:13:57.519 in serious interests, half in speculative fun. There are stories 287 00:13:57.559 --> 00:14:00.240 the layers of a town, all pass rooms that only 288 00:14:00.240 --> 00:14:02.960 open after a flood. Some places hold onto their old footprints. 289 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.559 Maybe here is just a little more active. That got 290 00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:07.399 a laugh, then a pause. The sword that sparks when 291 00:14:07.399 --> 00:14:10.000 everyone stands on the edge of a new idea. We 292 00:14:10.039 --> 00:14:12.519 made our way back up stairs, past miss Espauer, who 293 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:15.600 was muttering over a pile of catalog cards. She looked 294 00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:17.960 up as we came near. It's just like when I 295 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:20.200 was little. The stairs were different every few years after 296 00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:23.080 big floods, after they moved the stacks. My mother always 297 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:25.200 said the basement grew every time the river cane close. 298 00:14:25.960 --> 00:14:29.399 She chuckled. Maybe she meant mole, not rooms. Hard to say. 299 00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:32.320 Now that evening, reviewing our map spread on the long 300 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:34.840 reading table where pigeons would soon return, a thought began 301 00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:38.039 to crystallize. The irregularities had taken on a life of 302 00:14:38.039 --> 00:14:41.080 their own. We'd come from counting bricks and tracing moles 303 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:43.600 to drawing a tangled web of memories and maps, all 304 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:46.720 traditions and impossible measurements. The more we tried to pin 305 00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:49.720 things down, the more elucid the truth became. I looked 306 00:14:49.720 --> 00:14:52.200 at the brash school age sketches. Eric had dug out 307 00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:54.720 of his back back. These should not all be true 308 00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:58.720 at once. Maybe none of them are, Jasmine joked, No, 309 00:14:58.879 --> 00:15:00.559 maybe all of them are in their our own way, 310 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:03.720 I replied, only half in jest. We gathered once more 311 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:05.639 at the staff room, the others hoping for a simpler 312 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:09.240 answer than the ones multiplying in our notes. Marnie, always 313 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:12.480 level headed, rolled her eyes at the imagined complexity. The 314 00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:14.720 old plans were always sloppy. Old time is like to 315 00:15:14.759 --> 00:15:17.720 leave surprises, that's part of working here. But I could 316 00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:20.000 tell the contradictions were starting to warn their way under 317 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:22.919 her skin as well. The doubt grew with each passing day. 318 00:15:23.559 --> 00:15:26.720 My tape measure evidence, once solid, behaved like a top Frid's, 319 00:15:26.679 --> 00:15:30.200 slackening and tightening without warning. Shadows and hallways changed not 320 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:32.240 only with the sun, but with the movement of people 321 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:35.799 through rooms half remembered and newly discovered. One mile Thursday, 322 00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:37.720 after the city had dried off from a week of rain, 323 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:39.480 our little group made a new attempt to fix the 324 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:42.919 location of the infamacised reading room. Miss Cess Bauer, bright 325 00:15:42.919 --> 00:15:45.080 eyed at the adventure, promised to guide us according to 326 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:48.240 childhood memory. The library echoed with dust and the shuffling 327 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:50.759 of staff above, their steps drifting and from above around. 328 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:54.879 We moved as one, counting doorways, peering round corners, feeling 329 00:15:54.879 --> 00:15:58.080 walls for slight coolness. We reached a narrow passage that, 330 00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:01.879 by any calculation, should have been part of them Intian's corridor. Instead, 331 00:16:01.960 --> 00:16:05.000 it was a dead end. No reading room, just faint 332 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:07.159 marks in the dust, as if some one had rearranged 333 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:10.120 things behind the scenes of a theater set. Eric's voice 334 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:13.399 was hushed. You get the feeling the building's listening. We 335 00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:16.519 all chuckled, too, and settled to deny outright. I tried 336 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:19.600 once more to chart distances, counting shadows, steps, and the 337 00:16:19.679 --> 00:16:22.960 length of my own sarade. I recorded everything twice, then 338 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:26.200 three times, and found the numbers disagreed by small but 339 00:16:26.279 --> 00:16:30.480 persistent margins. Then, yet, though small mismatches slowly gathered gravity, 340 00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:33.799 each inconsistent measurement weighed on my mind. By this point 341 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:37.399 we'd earned enough sidelong glances from the other volunteers. With 342 00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:40.279 every puzzle, I confessed to feeling both foolish and exhilerated, 343 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:41.879 as if I had stumbled into the middle of someone 344 00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:44.519 else's secret written under the floorboards in a language only 345 00:16:44.519 --> 00:16:47.200 half under my command. There came a certain release in 346 00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:50.759 admitting confusion. I let myself enjoyed anomaly, not as a threat, 347 00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:54.639 but as an invitation. So what next, boss, Eric asked 348 00:16:54.639 --> 00:16:56.639 at the end of that week, folding up his own sketch, 349 00:16:56.759 --> 00:16:59.360 kentucking it into a messenger back scrolled with band stickers. 350 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:03.080 I grinned, shaking my head in amusement. Try not to 351 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:06.359 fall through to the next floor or the past. He grinned, back, 352 00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:09.000 his eyes a storm of questions, but my own mind 353 00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:11.920 ticked over again, as always did. There were holes in 354 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:14.920 the building, story spaces where logic thinned and memory flooded in, 355 00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:18.039 Refusing to be built over entirely. We agreed to step 356 00:17:18.119 --> 00:17:22.119 up our investigations, no more half measures. If the building 357 00:17:22.119 --> 00:17:24.519 wanted to play games with space and recollection, it would 358 00:17:24.519 --> 00:17:27.319 have to suffer a team of retirees, students, and true believers, 359 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:30.359 measuring every square foot it could conjure. The following Monday, 360 00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:33.119 we arned ourselves with boxes of colored pins and sticky notes, 361 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:37.279 extra clipboards, spare batteries. We laid out our current subbasement map, 362 00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:40.960 mocking every nun door, corridor, alcove, and stair, each of 363 00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:43.640 us took a different colored set of pins. The plan 364 00:17:43.839 --> 00:17:46.079 placed the pins in every location as we moved through, 365 00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:50.359 confirming placement every hour, we chart movement, see what changed 366 00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:54.079 and compare notes. Jasmine set out east airquent west, miss 367 00:17:54.160 --> 00:17:56.880 Espoun north to her supposed reading lounge, and I traced 368 00:17:56.880 --> 00:18:00.240 the central corridors. Within two hours flop and look like 369 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:03.119 a printing press had run wild, pins had migrated or 370 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:06.759 been replaced without explanation. Misses sparswore she left of red 371 00:18:06.759 --> 00:18:09.119 pin by the old storage closet. Now it had appeared 372 00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.960 by a stair there shouldn't have been there. Jasmine's sequence 373 00:18:11.960 --> 00:18:13.960 of yellow stickers led to a blank wall. On the 374 00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:17.559 next round, My green pin, meant to mark the electrical panel, 375 00:18:17.599 --> 00:18:20.279 materialized instead by a windowless room filled with nothing but 376 00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:22.599 an old book trolley and the smell of wet cardboard. 377 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:26.559 We gathered at the main sub basement intersection, comparing our findings. 378 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:30.200 Jasmine laughed, shaking her head. It's like the building's a 379 00:18:30.200 --> 00:18:33.559 mace that shuffles when you're not looking. Maronie, summoned reluctantly 380 00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:36.799 to consult, pressed her lips together, not pleased by the inefficiency. 381 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:39.799 It's an old place. Don't get too wound up, doors 382 00:18:39.799 --> 00:18:42.799 get moved, wall shift, that's what happens. But she looked 383 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:44.640 over the new map and front, her finger pressing on 384 00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:46.440 the necks that should have matched a stair, only to 385 00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:49.359 find the stair now led nowhere. We washed her struggle 386 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:51.480 with uncertainty for the first time, the shirdy in her 387 00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:54.319 voice wavered. That was the moment, the gentle given the 388 00:18:54.359 --> 00:18:57.440 mask of certainty, the moment when even the stubbornly practical 389 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:00.079 had to concede that the ordinary rules had slipped. I 390 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:03.079 glanced around the circle of our little group. Each of us, 391 00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:05.119 in our own way, felt the thrill of standing with 392 00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:07.079 both feet and mystery, the kind that doesn't threaten so 393 00:19:07.160 --> 00:19:09.720 much as beckon hinting at something larger beneath the surface. 394 00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:12.400 We stood in silence for a minute, each of us 395 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:15.640 processing a puzzle in our own tongues. I'm starting to think, 396 00:19:15.880 --> 00:19:18.240 Eric said, speaking as much to himself as to us, 397 00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:20.279 that it's not just the building we're trying to measure. 398 00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:24.160 For a heartbeat, nobody disagree. Jasmine picked up one of 399 00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:26.799 the colored pins between thumb and forefinger, squinting at it 400 00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:28.759 as if she could spot any explanation in the walls 401 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:31.680