WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:08.320 It began with the restless shuffle of cardboard every April, 2 00:00:08.359 --> 00:00:10.400 the library's main hall filled with the scent of third 3 00:00:10.439 --> 00:00:12.519 grass and second hand paper, and a dozen of us 4 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:15.240 sold regulars and straggling teens with whole boxes of donated 5 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:17.839 books from the basement up to lawn tables under the skylights. 6 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:21.000 There was a little ceremony to it, just cheerful grunting 7 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:23.559 Mary's voice, cracking jokes over the clatter, and the odd 8 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:25.760 reverent poles for a rare binding, or a volume pressed 9 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:28.280 open mid box to the surprises of its margin scribbles. 10 00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:31.160 Book sale prep became a kind of spring ritual, one 11 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:33.719 more thing I imagined, and you by pattern, year by year. 12 00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:37.000 My task that morning was faerying mysteries and thrillers, some 13 00:00:37.159 --> 00:00:39.600 in battered dust jackets down the side corridor for salting. 14 00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:43.479 The back hallway had always been a snug, slightly lopsided passage, 15 00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:45.240 with a window at its end, peering west over the 16 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:48.000 sloping pucking lot, and in winter catching the last bare 17 00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:51.119 branches of the riverside arms. I had walked at hundreds 18 00:00:51.119 --> 00:00:53.520 of tom since first moving here in seventy eight, dropping 19 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.840 by for chest tutoring er most often the quiet. I 20 00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.240 had memorized its tilt and draft, the way sunlight hit 21 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:02.719 the mopbucket midare afternoon, But this time, weaving a box 22 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:05.079 against my hip, I almost dropped the lot half way down. 23 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:08.280 There was a door, or rather there shouldn't have been 24 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:10.560 a door, knot there were instinct to memory scream for 25 00:01:10.599 --> 00:01:13.840 a window. The door wasn't disguised, plain oak with a 26 00:01:13.879 --> 00:01:16.959 euilitarian second floor staff, only plat that looked neither freshly 27 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:20.159 instolled nor markedly aged. What kept me still was not 28 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:23.640 just the material appointed real unremarkable, but that it belonged 29 00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:25.959 with no hint how or when it had arrived. The 30 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.680 hallway was empty. I sat down my box on the 31 00:01:28.680 --> 00:01:31.519 coal tile, listened for voices, heard only muffled laughter from 32 00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:35.239 the reading room. Had I misremembered the memory of the window, 33 00:01:35.319 --> 00:01:37.280 the one at the end, crucial, anchored by years of 34 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:40.359 habit breast so oddly against this fact, I rapped twice on 35 00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:43.280 the door, half expecting a librarian, or perhaps nothing at all. 36 00:01:44.040 --> 00:01:46.760 Just then Mary bustled by a pyramid of paperbacks in 37 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:51.319 her arms. Mary, I tried to catch her attention. When 38 00:01:51.319 --> 00:01:54.599 did we add a staircase this new door? She snorted, 39 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:57.719 didn't stop. That's always been there, Tom most sorting in 40 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:01.280 the lounge. Please, She was gone, trailing after a tumbling volume. 41 00:02:01.760 --> 00:02:04.439 My protest shrank in a wick of her briskness to 42 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:06.599 dismiss such a visible feature, whether a wavy that my 43 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:08.879 town had become a magician's stage, or my years were 44 00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:11.599 plain tricks. But I knew these walls there now be 45 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:14.879 radiators and chip paint. I'd help paint them one summer. 46 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:17.360 How could a hold or have a pube of no memory? 47 00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:20.680 Not just mine but the towns. Carrying the book's back, 48 00:02:20.759 --> 00:02:24.000 I grazed the origion with my knuckles. The brass felt cold. 49 00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:26.879 The rest of the day offered no answers, just small 50 00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:30.759 looping questions. Was it possible to misplace such a fundamental element, 51 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:35.680 or could familiarity itself blindness so thoroughly? I imagine myself laughing 52 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:37.439 at the overse at by dinner. But the image of 53 00:02:37.439 --> 00:02:39.439 that door returned as I left, fractured by the lowering 54 00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:42.039 sun in the glass behind me. The emptiness of the 55 00:02:42.039 --> 00:02:44.919 parking lot aside felt unsettled, as though something essential had 56 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:47.719 been minutely out of line. My world, as much as 57 00:02:47.759 --> 00:02:50.680 any teachers is built from habit of proof. I taught 58 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:53.400 algebra and geometry for thirty two years, never coached sports, 59 00:02:53.479 --> 00:02:55.879 but run enough to schol Mas's circle with stubborn affection 60 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:59.400 until the budget vanished one spring. My reputation earned across 61 00:02:59.479 --> 00:03:02.400 chalk dusty seasons was as a patient explainer and stickler 62 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:06.240 for odd details. Even in retirement, I drifted through habit tudoring, 63 00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:09.280 helping with chess club, hauling boxes, parsing crosswords over week 64 00:03:09.319 --> 00:03:12.319 library coffee. This wasn't a town requiring much in the 65 00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:15.439 way of vigilance. The buildings changed only in paint and 66 00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:18.520 posted hours. Last year's history left finger prints under each 67 00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:22.199 new renovation. The public library, in particular war sage like 68 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:25.439 well loved furniture, a late nineteenth century relic with Queen 69 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:27.840 Anne flourishes. It sat fromly on its lot between the 70 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:31.479 river and main Street. The main reading room held gentle conversations, 71 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:35.520 wandering children, and a most days mister Parkes, a dignified 72 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:37.960 occationenarian with a memory for every cobblestone the town had 73 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.680 ever known. Mary, our head librarian, could remember any overage 74 00:03:41.719 --> 00:03:44.680 book and upace a delivery truck up the stairs. I've 75 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:47.159 seen everything in this old building, she told me once, 76 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:50.120 waving me away from the off limit storage. She said 77 00:03:50.159 --> 00:03:51.680 it with a pride that owned both the bricks and 78 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.319 the oddness baked into them. There was rosa to the 79 00:03:54.319 --> 00:03:57.520 current student assistant tail, sharp, smile, brighter, growed with the scanner, 80 00:03:57.560 --> 00:03:59.360 and better with the wandering kids who spilt jews in 81 00:03:59.400 --> 00:04:02.520 the rug she was saving for community college, stopping by 82 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:04.800 to shelf the weird stuff, as she called it. The 83 00:04:04.879 --> 00:04:07.960 libraries layout had never been a secret. The only public 84 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.120 stack is an ornate carve thing that looked better than 85 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:12.280 it functioned, rose right from the main lobby and led 86 00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:14.840 anticlimactically to a small landing with a locked office in 87 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:17.920 a staff bathroom. The attic we all knew sloped low 88 00:04:17.959 --> 00:04:20.519 over the stacks full of duckwork ancient fans surely too 89 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:23.399 narrowed a stent Mary swore the bats had been evicted 90 00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:26.600 by shearwell. Old black and white photos along the walls 91 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.000 showed the building in various decades, always a squat sandal 92 00:04:29.079 --> 00:04:32.360 story structure beneath a fancifully bevery roof, never a second floor. 93 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:35.759 And yet though his photos could shift quietly, angles blowed 94 00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:38.759 windows vanish if he did not examine them closely. The 95 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:42.000 annual booksale meant were populating the main floor side rooms, 96 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:45.800 the tiled sun porch, never an upstairs. My route from 97 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:48.000 the basement storage ran up the service stairs, through a 98 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:50.279 low floor to ply hall, always ending at the familiar 99 00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:53.680 west window, which now sometimes was a door. Mister Parks 100 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:56.279 joined me there that week, shuffling through pamphlets nobody had 101 00:04:56.319 --> 00:04:59.600 read in sixty years. When he noticed my preoccupation, he 102 00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:02.240 offered me another local anecdote about the original builder's grand 103 00:05:02.279 --> 00:05:04.720 children digging post holes right here where the water leaks in. 104 00:05:05.319 --> 00:05:08.000 He claimed the library's biggest expense across his tree was 105 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:11.240 draining water from places nobody intended to use. The way 106 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:13.839 he spoke was precise, no casual references to lost rooms 107 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:17.000 or sudden staircases. Rosa Bozsbay in the following days to 108 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:19.920 collect stray donations from the trunk of my car. Between 109 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:23.120 our conversations about quadratic equations her least favorite subject, she 110 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:25.399 said to but you make it almost fun, mister Dunbart, 111 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:28.959 I caught myself almost mentioning the door. She interrupted my hesitation, 112 00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:30.839 what's up with the back closet? This week? Found a 113 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:33.000 bunch of trak trophies in it that can't be normal. 114 00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:35.759 If she noticed my lingering glance, she chalked it up 115 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:39.639 to library weirdness. Each day I walked the hallway, Some 116 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:43.319 days the black read confidently second floor staff only other 117 00:05:43.399 --> 00:05:46.600 days nosign at all. Maybe I had lost my certainties 118 00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:49.519 among the smells of moss and buckaloo. By midweek, my 119 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:53.560 skepticism lost its edge. Instead, something keener pressed forward, a 120 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:56.120 fascination that tipped from irritatingly out of placed into a 121 00:05:56.199 --> 00:05:59.279 kind of private game. Salted into my routines. The door 122 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:01.759 became an anchor for new questions as vivid as any 123 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:05.120 geometry problem I'd ever assigned. I decided to tackle her 124 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:07.839 directly the following Thursday, days after Mary's brush off, in 125 00:06:07.879 --> 00:06:10.800 my own circuit of self doubt, if memory play tricks, 126 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:14.360 then repetition would surely reveal the rouse. The library that 127 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:16.680 morning was caught in the rare hush between story time 128 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:19.399 and the arrival of the lunch crowd. I returned to 129 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:23.399 the corridor. There it was the door, oak thick at sanstassign. 130 00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:27.879 This time, Rosa was propped against a wall, thumbing her phone. Rosa, 131 00:06:28.120 --> 00:06:30.800 I said as lightly as possible. I have an odd 132 00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:32.720 question for you. The door at the end day. What's 133 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:36.240 really up there? She glanced up, without moving. Wish I knew. 134 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:38.439 Mary says it's where all the old dictionary is alive. 135 00:06:38.560 --> 00:06:40.399 But she's the only one with the key. I usually 136 00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:43.720 find cleaning supplies. No idea, what was past? Why? I 137 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:46.920 hesitated pointed out the window next to the door. Shouldn't 138 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:49.519 you be able to see the parking lot? The glass 139 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:51.920 gave back only a milky hallway reflection, brighter than it 140 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:55.480 should have been. Maybe the blinds are stuck, she shrugged, 141 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:58.399 Or the windows are double paned, or whatever. Honestly, this 142 00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:01.000 building sweared. All the attics in this town are probably 143 00:07:01.079 --> 00:07:04.480 haunted by despons. Anyway, my hand reached for the handle, 144 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:07.959 more as reflex than resolve. It was locked. The metal 145 00:07:07.959 --> 00:07:10.720 colt and dry. Not a flicker of movement, not a 146 00:07:10.759 --> 00:07:13.800 creek from behind. I lean closer, hoping to catch a 147 00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:16.639 sound of pipe rattling, a footstep, a settling of books overhead, 148 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:19.839 but nothing. Other staff drifted by with near a glance. 149 00:07:20.519 --> 00:07:23.160 These were not actors. Their obliviousness fell too real. Two 150 00:07:23.199 --> 00:07:26.519 lived in. There were no questions, no side eyes, just 151 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:29.120 the hallway in its doubly impossible door, as unremarkable to 152 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:32.000 theirs as a light switch or fire alarm. A strange 153 00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:35.040 humming disquiet folded me. I closed my eyes trace the logic. 154 00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:36.920 If there cannot be a second floor, yet the door 155 00:07:36.920 --> 00:07:39.600 insists on its possibility, then something subtler is a play, 156 00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:42.079 a contradiction that refuses the safety of vida slash, or 157 00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:45.759 it occurs in geometry. Sometimes a proof of hidden postulates 158 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:48.040 a result that cannot be made to fit, but keeps recurring, 159 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:50.800 a signal that your premises have quietly misled you. I 160 00:07:50.879 --> 00:07:52.600 left the day with the low gleam of a puzzle, 161 00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:56.439 not threatening but insistently unresolved. That night, I spread my sketch, 162 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:58.879 become the dining table, and, as has always brought me comfort, 163 00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:02.240 began to draft. I drew the library's hallway from memory 164 00:08:02.279 --> 00:08:05.480 first entrance to the maintenance corridor, Ben's and engles that 165 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:08.959 final window. My lines were crisp, certain in their placement. 166 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:11.439 Then I drew in the door. Its tight relative to 167 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:14.040 the window ledge is brass handle, the staff signd that 168 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:16.720 hung as if nailed there forever it jarred my own 169 00:08:16.759 --> 00:08:19.040 drawn logic. The window was smaller by an inch. The 170 00:08:19.079 --> 00:08:22.000 moling shifted away to accommodate the jam. I dug for 171 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:25.279 evidence poinfumous mass shells of photo albums until I unerved 172 00:08:25.279 --> 00:08:29.000 to snapshot my son, age eleven, groning on a snowy Saturday, 173 00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:32.159 outside the library's west wall, well before he left for college. 174 00:08:32.679 --> 00:08:35.759 No window upstairs, not so much as a vent. The 175 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:38.519 only glass above that side was the transom above the entry. 176 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:41.679 The following morning, I caught Murray sorting through a box 177 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:44.840 of cold National geographics. She rolled her eyes at the 178 00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:48.200 diagram I drawn, Tom. I promise at storage there is 179 00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:50.600 always some artnok for junk up there. Look, we get 180 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:52.879 hand me downs and buildings too. My first year, the 181 00:08:52.919 --> 00:08:55.159 closet was piled to the ceiling with encyclopedias and the 182 00:08:55.159 --> 00:08:57.440 speaker system that never worked. I think the stairs armed 183 00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:00.720 up to code. Honestly, maybe it's Wayeve never noticed yet. 184 00:09:00.759 --> 00:09:03.919 Later that day, mister Parkes, when asked about an upper room, 185 00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:07.279 lowered his glasses. There were grand plans once, you know, 186 00:09:07.519 --> 00:09:11.519 he mused, leaning conspiratorily in his chair. Missus van Dorin 187 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:14.399 wanted a whole reading Mazzanine, never more than blueprints, of course, 188 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:16.639 money ran out after the war. The attics as empty 189 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:19.159 as ever, unless he count insulation for a winter drafts. 190 00:09:19.799 --> 00:09:22.159 He patted my hand, as if comforting a persistent but 191 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:26.879 backward student. Brossa always game. Got hold of the staff blueprints. 192 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:29.440 We knelt over them. My knees growned as I deciphered 193 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:33.399 scaled lines. No stair, no second floor, just cramped storage 194 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:36.600 in a core space. She scold municipal records on her phone, 195 00:09:36.679 --> 00:09:38.799 frowning in a way that made her seem abruptly older, 196 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:42.200 or at least more like a skeptic. So ere door's 197 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:44.559 not on here, not on the old plans, not the new. 198 00:09:44.639 --> 00:09:47.240 Maybe it's a portal to a better matt apartment, she teased. 199 00:09:47.879 --> 00:09:50.799 What unsettled me most was how normal conversation pressed itself 200 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:55.159 around the contradiction, sealing over its cracks. My next three visits, 201 00:09:55.360 --> 00:09:57.600 each spaced a couple days apart. I set out with 202 00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:00.440 the determination of a man proving his own mind. The 203 00:10:00.519 --> 00:10:03.159 door present, then absent, as if alternating with the weather. 204 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:06.519 One morning, a curtain potly covered glass. The next visit 205 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:09.840 plain wool once the old winter faced west in the river. 206 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:13.000 Another seemed to look out over Main Street's roofines an 207 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:16.679 impossible geometry. Finally, on a quiet Monday, after returning a 208 00:10:16.679 --> 00:10:19.159 stack of chest manuals, the door sood a jaw unlocked, 209 00:10:19.159 --> 00:10:22.200 as though for me alone. My pulse quickened, not fearfully, 210 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:24.960 but with the alwitness of a puzzle's threshold. I nudged 211 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:29.039 it gently beyond a staircase curled upward. Tata knoll banister 212 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:31.600 broad enough for a palm, dis shivered in the air, 213 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:33.960 tinged with ascent that took me straight to childhood. Old 214 00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:37.120 wool sun on cellulose, a hint of dried lilac. I 215 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:39.240 stepped on to the bottom tread, felt it yield, but 216 00:10:39.320 --> 00:10:42.879 hold about went feet, creaking half a dozen steps into 217 00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:46.320 gathering dusk. The terran was sharp into blackness above where 218 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:48.919 the staircase seemed to taper before it should. There was 219 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:52.600 a hush, as if the whole library waited over my shoulder. 220 00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:54.559 At the base of the stairs. A glimpse of bright 221 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:56.720 spill off the whole way, exactly as it had always been. 222 00:10:57.200 --> 00:10:59.759 A strangely flooded me. For the moment this was real, 223 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:03.240 both more and less than impossible. I heard a voice below. 224 00:11:03.879 --> 00:11:07.840 Mister dunbar Rosa had poked around the jam. Her voice 225 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:10.600 startled me down the steps. Suddenly aware I'd wandered somewhere 226 00:11:10.600 --> 00:11:13.639 both unexplained and unchaired, I beckoned her up, hand on 227 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:17.360 the rail. She bounded up beside me, But at the landing, 228 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:19.879 the staircase was no longer there, just the biting scent 229 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:22.759 of cleaning products, a deep closet stack with buckets and bleach. 230 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:26.080 We blinked, peered for any sign of boards by extra light, 231 00:11:26.159 --> 00:11:29.600 but the world had collapsed neatly back to habit. Rosa straightened, 232 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:33.200 half grinning, half troubled. Was there? Never mind? Ye tell 233 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:36.480 me if there was? We shared an embarrassed laugh. In 234 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:39.519 that moment, doubt and all commingled. Was I inventing the steps? 235 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:42.919 Or was Rosa? Did he the possibility lessen their reality? 236 00:11:43.559 --> 00:11:47.080 The next week, my curiosity multiplied with each smoll inconsistency. 237 00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:50.039 At the Thirs Ditches Club, mister Pucks told the room, 238 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:52.200 I remember going up there one summer. They gave us 239 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:55.360 popsicles and we read folk tales upstairs. He pointed a 240 00:11:55.440 --> 00:11:58.879 nall finger upward, his certainty total. But missus Styer, two 241 00:11:58.919 --> 00:12:01.799 seats down, shook her head only ever an attic up 242 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:03.799 there full of bats, if anything. We dared each other 243 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:06.480 to poke around, hardly fit a grown man standing up. 244 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:09.360 I drew out details as best I could, jotting notes 245 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:12.080 in a cheap spiral. When who what was there? The 246 00:12:12.120 --> 00:12:15.519 accounts diverged wildly. Some described crisp afternoons, rows of child 247 00:12:15.639 --> 00:12:18.320 sized chairs by a tall window, while others recalled only 248 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:21.240 trapped doors in insulation. Each person held the memory with 249 00:12:21.279 --> 00:12:24.399 a firmness that brooked no argument. Over the weekend, I 250 00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:27.679 pulled the young parents at story time. One woman mused, 251 00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:29.960 I always thought the upstairs was for the old librarians. 252 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:32.320 I never saw anyone go up, but sometimes you catch 253 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:35.840 a shadow in the window right, while farther nearby insisted 254 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:37.960 no such thing. The building looks the same as when 255 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:41.960 I was five. Now overlaps, no pattern, just the persistent 256 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:45.000 unease that too many truths were colliding. But when press 257 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:48.840 nobody confess uncertainty. Their stories clicked into plays, each as 258 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:51.080 tidy as a large a puzzle, missing every other clue. 259 00:12:51.480 --> 00:12:53.759 Their story, and in me wrestled with contradiction. The teacher 260 00:12:53.759 --> 00:12:56.080 began to save the uncertainty. After all this delight in 261 00:12:56.120 --> 00:12:58.120 a riddle that changes each time you glance at it. 262 00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:01.279 Then such low details began to slipped their way into focus, 263 00:13:02.039 --> 00:13:03.879 not just the door, but the rest of the hallway. 264 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:06.960 Sometimes the linnoleum tiles flashed of richard blue, sometimes dull 265 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:10.799 gray on rainy days. The overhead life flickered on sunny afternoons. 266 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:13.279 The window when prison appeared frosted or clear, in direct 267 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:16.519 opposition to the outside weather. Once, as I passed through 268 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:19.559 with the box of Return non Fiction, a cobreeze perfumed 269 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:22.279 unmistakably with lilacs drifted from above. Though it was weeks 270 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:24.720 early for any bloom, and certainly no flowers grew in 271 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:27.639 attic dust. I left a folded note on one stair, 272 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:30.080 tucked deep against the wall. If you find this, please 273 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:32.759 tell me how. The next day, no sign of it, 274 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:35.960 not on the step, nor in the closet, nor returned 275 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:38.840 to the lost and found. It seemed more and more 276 00:13:38.919 --> 00:13:41.240 that the building played gentle tricks according to its observer. 277 00:13:41.960 --> 00:13:45.240 Each configuration was both insistent and ephemeral, like the shapes 278 00:13:45.279 --> 00:13:47.440 you see when staring at patent tile, or the divisions 279 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:49.360 in a cloud. There until you show some one else 280 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:53.120 then gone. I realized finally that it wasn't about catching 281 00:13:53.159 --> 00:13:56.200 the change, but about recognizing that it would always refuse capture. 282 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.200 The building offered not a revelation, but a mirror for 283 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:02.919 each expectation brought to her. In frustration, then amazement, I 284 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:07.279 began to seek not proof but possibility. I listened, I 285 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:11.320 watched each encounter, rebalanced the sum. One day an impossible stare, 286 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:15.080 the next only a memory witness, but vanished Puzzling over this, 287 00:14:15.480 --> 00:14:18.200 I spent an afternoon in the riverside park opposite the library, 288 00:14:18.279 --> 00:14:21.279 notebook and lap. The town's main street blowed behind me. 289 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:24.840 Robin's call from throwing maple branches and run off turned 290 00:14:24.840 --> 00:14:27.639 a parking lot to a shallow reflecting pool. I drew 291 00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:30.000 the library's outline as it stood, no upper floor, just 292 00:14:30.039 --> 00:14:33.360 the single window, mossy roof. I compared it to all photos, 293 00:14:33.399 --> 00:14:35.519 to the snapshot of my son, to the crisp blinds 294 00:14:35.559 --> 00:14:38.480 of this psoric society's grand plans that never survived the budget. 295 00:14:38.840 --> 00:14:41.399 But the library's reflection in the glass of the bakery next. 296 00:14:41.399 --> 00:14:45.080 All shimmered differently. Sometimes people walked past. I called in 297 00:14:45.159 --> 00:14:47.279 a glean the sudden line of windows where none should exist, 298 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:50.279 quiet stoic, the faintest implication of another story loss. Just 299 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:53.480 as he blinked. Turning back, the building stood a change 300 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:56.360 one floor, a proud old roof line in a puddle, 301 00:14:56.360 --> 00:14:58.600 beside the curved cheek rest tangled at the edge. I 302 00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:00.960 called for a moment, just long enough for curiosity. Not 303 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:02.799 the honest mirror of the ground floor, but a smash 304 00:15:02.840 --> 00:15:05.639 of shadow, rectangular and regular, lying above the visible brick. 305 00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:09.720 I checked, checked, again, then blinked away. The contradiction was 306 00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:12.320 growing fractal. Each new angle revealed not a single truth, 307 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:16.519 but a possibility nested inside every observation. The world, I realized, 308 00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:20.559 never quite stopped recuculating itself. That afternoon, the questions changed 309 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:23.360 for me. How could such a thing persist without notice? 310 00:15:23.879 --> 00:15:25.840 How were so many sure of their own story when 311 00:15:25.879 --> 00:15:29.120 no story matched another? Was the building itself reflecting not 312 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:32.200 just all plans or municipal confusion, but some deeper pattern 313 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:34.440 and woven from the threads of all our memories, all 314 00:15:34.440 --> 00:15:36.720 our wishes for what might have been. We live in 315 00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:39.080 the rooms of the possible, I thought, not only the 316 00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:41.799 rooms of the real. I set down my pen, feeling 317 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:44.399 newly humble before ambiguity. A teacher at once addicted to 318 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:49.320 answers now flussify an uncertainty that had become weirdly companionable. Determined, 319 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:51.159 I went back to the source with a different approach. 320 00:15:51.919 --> 00:15:54.399 I asked Marie and mister Parks and Rosa to humor 321 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:56.279 me for an evening discussion one of my old math's 322 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:59.279 circle tactics as simple for reperspectives. See where they of lapou, 323 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:02.200 don't We gathered in the staff lounge, the scand of 324 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:04.960 instant coffee, and it seemed to me something older and sweeter, 325 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:07.720 some warm bundings perhaps, or just the shifting breeze of 326 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:11.120 hopeful conversation. I explained as best I could, the shifting evidence, 327 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:14.120 the dough sometimes here, sometimes absent, The account's broken, the 328 00:16:14.200 --> 00:16:16.000 view in the window never quite right, the sense of 329 00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:18.559 an upstairs tied to a momentary wish, her collective memory. 330 00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:21.360 Mary feed up on a box and sordid poetry shook 331 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:24.759 her head. But smiled buildings are never just blueprints, memories, 332 00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:26.879 rumor they stick. When we were kids, we made up 333 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:29.279 all kinds of stories about what was behind every locked door. 334 00:16:29.399 --> 00:16:31.559 Maybe it's the same thing, just grown abs don't want 335 00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:34.200 to admit we still do it. Mister parks offered a 336 00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:38.559 contrary view. No, there were plans, real ones, papers, community drives. 337 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:41.759 People bought tickets to phantom events. Sometimes wanting is enough 338 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:43.360 to make people see what never quite made it to 339 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:46.919 brick and mortar Rosa legs curled beneath her spoke last, 340 00:16:47.639 --> 00:16:49.720 But what if there is a second floor, only different 341 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:53.080 for everyone? Like I don't know Schrodinger's attic, her grin 342 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:55.080 was an apologetic eyes bright with the rush of her 343 00:16:55.080 --> 00:17:00.320 own theory. The conversation drifted, spiraled, folded back. Yet somewhere 344 00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:02.559 in the chorus of perspectives, I saw what I'd missed. 345 00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:04.920 The building was not just stone and measurement, but an 346 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:08.039 ongoing argument between memorad, hope, and habit a thing shaped 347 00:17:08.039 --> 00:17:11.319 as much by community longing as by its foundations. Driven 348 00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:14.079 by this idea, I doubled down on record keeping. I 349 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:17.119 visited the town's municipal archives, doused for every document about 350 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:21.240 the library's construction. There, among dusty folders and fading carbon coppers, 351 00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:24.480 I found blueprints, ancient and more recent, summarred by histily 352 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:27.839 pencil to erasures. One plan boasted a broad reading, lofty 353 00:17:27.839 --> 00:17:30.200 It was never built, but the schemata covered in ghostly 354 00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:33.440 pencil above the plan for roof trusses. Another contained only 355 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:36.799 foundational plans and yet affaired irrevision. Scribbled and fading writing 356 00:17:36.799 --> 00:17:39.400 showed a version with twin staircases and a phantom's second 357 00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:42.480 floor label feature sack. In the margin of a brittle 358 00:17:42.519 --> 00:17:45.599 nineteen forty seven blueprint, I found a hesitant no future 359 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:49.680 expansion story room upstairs. The handwriting was small, parenthetical, as 360 00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:52.759 if acknowledging hope more than outcome. Cross Checking the town 361 00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:55.960 paper's microfilm, I saw how the library's expansion had appeared 362 00:17:55.960 --> 00:17:59.160 as a perennial rumor in articles from the nineteen twenties. 363 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:02.279 The nineteen fifty local leaders promise in new upper rooms 364 00:18:02.279 --> 00:18:05.079 for reading and study sooner, then in editorials a year later, 365 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:08.720 regretful explanations for why funds to have not materialized From 366 00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:11.440 the pages of the past. The building shape undulated a 367 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:15.680 possibility hovering above each fiscal showfall. Perhaps the community's imagination 368 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:19.039 kept rear chiding what Brick never delivered. Eager to test 369 00:18:19.079 --> 00:18:20.880 the reach of this theory, I brought my arm out 370 00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:23.200 of findings to a small poplar gathering of the library's 371 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:26.640 older pagrons. I read aloud from eclipped articles passed around, 372 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:30.559 scanned coppers of blueprints and construction bids. The spark was immediate. 373 00:18:31.480 --> 00:18:34.240 Half a dozen voices rose with fragments of memory. Missus 374 00:18:34.279 --> 00:18:36.319 greenswoar as a girl should been read to upstairs by 375 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:39.039 the window, some light on the rug. When pressed, she 376 00:18:39.079 --> 00:18:41.240 offered the title of a book, The Wind between Branches, 377 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:44.519 a book that, searching the catalog I found nowhere. Mister 378 00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:48.359 O'Reilly nodded in saw her agreement. The Map of Impossible Places. 379 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:50.880 I check it out every summer, really illustrated, kept it 380 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:54.440 under the covers. Mary next to me, frown and confusion. 381 00:18:54.480 --> 00:18:56.519 These books were not in record, nor ever had been. 382 00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.519 She and sisted. Others equally certain, described the color of carpet, 383 00:19:00.519 --> 00:19:02.680 the warmth of light, even the way Dusmot swelled in 384 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:05.920 the sun. As the stories gathered, an emotional current ran 385 00:19:06.039 --> 00:19:08.799 just beneath the words regret, wistfulness, a kind of gentle joy. 386 00:19:09.480 --> 00:19:12.799 Forces caught, memories stumbled mid sentence, The air in the lungetick, 387 00:19:12.839 --> 00:19:15.240 with the sensation that for a moment, an entire missing 388 00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:19.000 chapter of the community hovered within reach. Not everyone agreed. 389 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:23.119 One man laughed, muttering never happened all just childhood dreaming. 390 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:26.359 Libraries have that effect. Yet I caught him later, sitting 391 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:28.640 silent by the west window, staring at the hallways. If 392 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:32.720 still insure. My notebook swelled with these contradictions. No two 393 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:35.440 memories matched exactly, but the communal need to remember some 394 00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:37.839 banished upstairs, whether built or not, had grown into a 395 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:41.799 shared undercurrent. Days later, a tuesdays so quiet felt suspended. 396 00:19:41.880 --> 00:19:44.680 I arrived early, unable to keep away. The door stood 397 00:19:44.680 --> 00:19:46.599 again at the end of the hallway, unlocked now as 398 00:19:46.599 --> 00:19:49.039 though the whole library had agreed to allow this one occasion. 399 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:52.680 I pushed it open, breath sharp with anticipation. Beyond was 400 00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:56.279 not darkness but honeyed light. The staircase slid up, broadening 401 00:19:56.279 --> 00:19:58.680