WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.679 In retirement. My kneesic thus from absence of children's feet 2 00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:09.759 hammering through the holes, then from the hush that replaced them, 3 00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:12.080 hush punctuated by the rubber feet of the carts, the 4 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:15.439 huffle of jackets, the occasional coffer venernestrida buried in some 5 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:19.320 decades old encyclopedia. For thirty nine years I stewarded an 6 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:22.039 elementary school library, where chaos was more likely to take 7 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:24.239 the form of a cocoa stain or a condestined pockumen 8 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:27.800 swore than anything supernatural. I believed in the ordinary magic 9 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:31.440 of reading locks and well tendered g decimals. Now, at 10 00:00:31.480 --> 00:00:33.799 sixty seven, two mornings a week, I volunteer at the 11 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:37.039 Rivertown Public Library. Rivers run behind the brick building, and 12 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.520 on quiet days you can almost smell the silt winding 13 00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:42.240 through the stacks. I like the routine, the comfort of 14 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:45.200 methodical tiding, and a low hum of whisper chatter. The 15 00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:48.399 main floor has a modernity that tries too hard. Glass panels, 16 00:00:48.439 --> 00:00:51.600 half unwrapped computer kiosks, and shelving units that move at 17 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:54.159 the flick of a key, but up one narrow staircase 18 00:00:54.159 --> 00:00:57.399 and past the microfiche cabinets, coroners remain unchanged and tampered, 19 00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:59.600 dust eer thick with that send only old books her 20 00:00:59.679 --> 00:01:02.640 meant on Tuesdays. I've made it my habit to us 21 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:05.280 near the alcove by the local history section. It's an 22 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:08.239 unpopular spot, overlooked unless there is a genealogy club or 23 00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:11.400 a power outed pushing guests from the computers. There's always 24 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:13.599 a sense of waiting here, as if the shells themselves 25 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.680 expect old secrets to be handled once more. That's where 26 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:18.719 I found the first set, a row of battered hardcovers, 27 00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:21.519 spines faded from near black to colorless brow. They were 28 00:01:21.599 --> 00:01:25.120 ordinary at glance, settlement histories and encyclopedia of Windmills by 29 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:27.840 Poetry Digest, all with a sort of library cards that 30 00:01:27.879 --> 00:01:30.519 still make my hut skip an a steutic beat. Most 31 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:32.879 had been checked at twice, maybe three times in over 32 00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:36.280 a century, but a few stood apart. The first card 33 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:38.640 to catch my eye belonged to Pathways for Youth nineteen 34 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:42.040 twenty two. Instead of names and dates, its return field 35 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:45.040 was scored with alternating black and white squires, a checkerboard 36 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:48.079 hand drawn with girt to the margins. The next oddity 37 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:50.879 came in meadows a handbook where right beneath the expected date, 38 00:01:50.959 --> 00:01:52.760 due and name columns, there was only a single and 39 00:01:52.959 --> 00:01:56.159 written shakily beneath the date, No borrow or name, no 40 00:01:56.319 --> 00:01:58.799 indication whether the book was ever read outside the library 41 00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:02.400 walls LP one last card in old Songs and singing games, 42 00:02:02.439 --> 00:02:06.000 expecting perhaps a signature or in kay blotch. Instead, the 43 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:09.240 lines had trailed off into looping symbols, dashes, and walls, 44 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:11.639 all growing less legible as they sprawled toward the card's 45 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:14.319 bottom edge. It felt less like a mistake and more 46 00:02:14.439 --> 00:02:17.840 like a moment of wealth, something unfinished. I hesitated, thumb 47 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:21.120 pressed against the brittle corner. Over the years, I'd catalog 48 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:24.879 dozens of mishaalved items, odd descriptions, and the usual assortment 49 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:28.360 of inexplicable notations. Once someone had checked out a mystery 50 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.479 novel under the name Daffy the Ghost, Once a child 51 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:33.240 had drawn a picture of her handster on a check 52 00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:35.840 out card after learning to sign her name. But these 53 00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:38.960 new notations felt both smaller and strangery, deliberate obscurity, like 54 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:41.400 an inside joke whose punch line had vanished with the teller. 55 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:46.159 This wasn't concerning not yet, but it was tugging. I 56 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:48.800 replaced the books, made a mental note to mention them 57 00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:51.439 to Lena, anewhad librarian, who would either laugh or scribble 58 00:02:51.479 --> 00:02:54.360 within her growing list of non essential upgrades. Then I 59 00:02:54.479 --> 00:02:56.599 dropped the matter, as much as that's ever been possible 60 00:02:56.599 --> 00:03:00.439 for me. Horridor was the rule. Anomalies markers of disorder 61 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:04.199 are meant to be understood, cataloged, corraled. Who would leave 62 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:07.280 records that led nowhere? Until I knew it was already 63 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.560 impossible to forget. Mornings in the public library begin with 64 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:12.960 a minor choreography. Lin unlocks the main doors by eight 65 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:15.400 forty five, even though we officially open at nine, and 66 00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:18.039 I arrived ten minutes after, warmly dressed against the chill. 67 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:21.680 The radiator is never quash. George the Custodian appears in 68 00:03:21.719 --> 00:03:24.039 its customary wolvest with his battered key ring and equip 69 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:27.280 about the stove failing again or the gutters overflowing. All 70 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:29.639 of us know each other's habits better than our birthdays. 71 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:33.520 The library itself is a monument to improvisation, felt in 72 00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:36.039 nineteen o six. It still bears the founding placu above 73 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:38.240 the portico, though ivy is slowly making off with the 74 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:41.800 one in nineteen o six. The original wing is all stonework, 75 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:45.000 arched windows and elaborate wood paneling, veined with generations of 76 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.960 attempts to match stain color ef the repairs. In the 77 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:51.599 nineteen sixties, someone boxed in two skylights with fluorescent fixtures, 78 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:55.000 creating a permanent battlefield between sun and tube. The second 79 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:57.560 four is a patchwork of half old offices, their functions 80 00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:00.599 lost to time. The basement hosts a Genia Elogy room, 81 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:02.879 I relic from when the city wanted to double Azalis 82 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:06.360 Island for the Canadian Midwest. If you listen closely, even 83 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:08.360 on the busiast day, you'll hear the river more than 84 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:11.840 the traffic outside. I cherish the peculiarities. The hidden broom 85 00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:14.639 closet where all Valentine's turn up in February. The mezzanine 86 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:17.519 with railing hot suited Towardwardian children but not modern adults. 87 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:19.920 The side stair, whose purpose no one remembers, but which 88 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.279 cannot for some reason be removed. There's no shortage of 89 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:27.399 characters inhabiting this place. Lena at twenty six is both 90 00:04:27.399 --> 00:04:29.480 a whirlwind and a warrior new to the job, living 91 00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:32.160 by bullet journal, often apologizing for not knowing where the 92 00:04:32.199 --> 00:04:36.120 migration patterns were a bird's monograph disappeared. She's ambitious and 93 00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:39.199 sometimes overwhelmed, still learning to navigate the town's culture of 94 00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:44.319 polite secrecy. George is the library's bones, retired, once hired 95 00:04:44.360 --> 00:04:47.319 back as a consulting custodiane. He doesn't do plumbing on Mondays, 96 00:04:47.319 --> 00:04:49.720 but can jury break any broken hinge with three minutes thought. 97 00:04:50.399 --> 00:04:52.879 When asked for library legends, he half jokes about the 98 00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:54.759 cat who live in the eaves, but he can recall 99 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:56.920 the precise years when the water table crept up to 100 00:04:56.920 --> 00:05:00.160 the file room carpet esdre a third floor fixtion sure 101 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:02.920 in our official town historian spends countless hours in the 102 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:05.959 genealogy nook. She has an uneven collection of clip on 103 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:09.120 urrants and encyclopedic knowledge of family trees, and a tourne 104 00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:12.319 that brooks no disagreement on which Civil War regiment camped upstream. 105 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:15.439 She's been recording oral histories with a tape recorder that 106 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:18.360 sounds like its cheering tax. There are always a pair 107 00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:20.839 of high school volunteers this year, so we in Rafi, 108 00:05:20.879 --> 00:05:23.920 commanded by parental decree to assist with technology support. Although 109 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:26.439 they mostly grumble about the ancient catalog software and fully 110 00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:29.240 at the first hint of heavy lifting, there's something enduring 111 00:05:29.279 --> 00:05:32.000 about their irreverence. It keeps the solemnity from tipping into 112 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:36.319 self importance. Town and library feed each other's mythologies For 113 00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:39.199 the annual Founder's Day. The board debates which carved initials 114 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:42.040 in reading runcy pre date the building. The legend of 115 00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:44.439 the fantom subscribe at the person who stole an entire 116 00:05:44.519 --> 00:05:47.279 run of nineteen forties Atlantic Monthly is revived every few 117 00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:50.519 years at staff lunches. The blackout front mentioned doners who 118 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:52.879 dreamed the building into being a line not only half 119 00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:56.560 comically infuriates Esther. As for me, I find satisfaction and 120 00:05:56.639 --> 00:05:59.920 routine in the privacy of curiosity. Even as a child, 121 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.680 I plucked volumes at random, more interested in what others 122 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:06.120 had scribbled in margins or pressed between pages. My favorite 123 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:08.800 find is a girl someone's spelling list and pencil tucked 124 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:11.839 in a child's book of mosses, the word conspelled five 125 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:14.759 different ways. I am not opposed to stories of ghost 126 00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:17.720 espouse or enchanted ledges, but my own strength is skepticism. 127 00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:20.600 I delight in finding tangible explanations for the oddities lurking 128 00:06:20.600 --> 00:06:24.399 in marginalia and circulation locks. Library cars with the strict 129 00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:27.560 ruled lines meant order, a ledger against forgetfulness, a record 130 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:31.160 of stewardship. Every signature, every date was another strand of 131 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:34.279 the web that made a library's memory strong. Everything is 132 00:06:34.279 --> 00:06:36.480 supposed to be catalog, as if putting a thing on 133 00:06:36.519 --> 00:06:39.680 paper keeps it in check. Knowing the rules, I believed, 134 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:42.040 was the surest way to keep confusion or entropiet bay. 135 00:06:42.639 --> 00:06:45.079 Yet those strange cards negedard, not quite out of order, 136 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.560 but out of place, as if they belonged to a 137 00:06:47.639 --> 00:06:50.680 kind of library no one had intended. Two weeks after 138 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:53.160 the first set, when the memory of those etch checkboards 139 00:06:53.160 --> 00:06:55.439 had nearly faded, I found myself for shoving a heavy 140 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:59.040 reference set in the alcove behind the encyclopedias. These particular 141 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:01.120 volumes were rarely to touch, now that the town leaned 142 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:03.800 more on Wikipedia than bund geography. It was in the 143 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:06.879 act of returning Encyclopedia of Agriculture for Rome and twelve 144 00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:09.879 that my hand snout something worged behind the stuck an 145 00:07:09.879 --> 00:07:12.600 old cloth bund booked domestic arrangements in the Upper Midwest, 146 00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:14.560 a title that would put half of the town to sleep. 147 00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:17.639 Its library card was tucked in the back, peaking yellow 148 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:20.439 and shy. The borrower field for the last checkout was 149 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:23.519 simply and oddly must has no surname, just the HONORIFK, 150 00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:26.839 hovering alone above the faint lines. Stranger still, the borrowed 151 00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:29.439 date read FAP thirty slash forty nine, a date which, 152 00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:32.079 even before retiring, I could have sworn did not exist. 153 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:34.720 The return date box was scold with the shape of 154 00:07:34.720 --> 00:07:37.040 two open brackets before, perhaps in a stylized hand, it 155 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:40.600 said awaited, the letters dissolving into lines. I spent longer 156 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:43.079 than I cared to admit, frowning at that card. My 157 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:45.759 experience with library pranks told me to expect a child's 158 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:48.199 judle or flirtician. But this was too deliberate, too neat 159 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:51.519 to be idle mischief, who, even in joking, borrows a 160 00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:55.040 book in nineteen forty nine on a day that didn't exist. Determined, 161 00:07:55.079 --> 00:07:57.079 I took it to the reference desk and started scanning 162 00:07:57.079 --> 00:07:59.560 our digital record for the date or name pattern. The 163 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:01.959 sesca be a hundred people, but a cross referenced with 164 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:05.279 the residential directories Lena had imported last spring. None of 165 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:08.519 the surnames associated with Messess in nineteen forty nine came close. 166 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:11.720 Not one match the handwriting or the period that led 167 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:13.560 me to the calendars. I had to double check. Was 168 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:16.639 there a leap here Fluke, There was not. February had 169 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:19.279 only twenty eight days that year. I checked him, or 170 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:24.319 checked no explanation. Other volunteers shrugged. George quinted at it 171 00:08:24.360 --> 00:08:28.759 and sad, I've seen stranger. Lena, ever supportive, suggested perhaps 172 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:32.720 our record keeping arabusy librarian distracted mid task. But by 173 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:35.159 now whatever comfort I taken in the initial odity began 174 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:37.679 to curdle, not into fear, but into a peculiar flavor 175 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:40.799 of disbelief. Up to this moment I had always found reason, 176 00:08:40.919 --> 00:08:44.559 eventually for every wild cataloging irregularity. But there was an 177 00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:47.360 ever so innocent, so precise it seemed designed to be found. 178 00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:50.559 As I closed the book, the question had grown larger. 179 00:08:50.679 --> 00:08:53.759 How many other books held cars like this? What pattern 180 00:08:53.840 --> 00:08:57.279 joined these errors together in impossibility? Was this some library's 181 00:08:57.279 --> 00:08:59.960 private amusement, or was something stranger at work, something with them, 182 00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:02.120 its own rules, its own twin logics of for ecod 183 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:05.360 and omission. There's a quiet urgency to certain curiosities, the 184 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:07.039 ones that settle into a groove in your mind and 185 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:11.120 make every interrupted question feel unfinished. I made my task systematic. 186 00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:14.159 My first step was to canvass the library's outer zones, 187 00:09:14.200 --> 00:09:16.480 shelving that edged on to forbidden. The long forgotten were 188 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:19.639 as simply resisted use. I started with the space behind 189 00:09:19.639 --> 00:09:22.559 the radiators. There, in a battered copy of folk Tales 190 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:24.360 of the Prairie, I found a coud with the signature 191 00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:26.480 field replaced by nat to liberate, waiting at the word 192 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:29.120 trailed off to the card's margin, both plea and non answer. 193 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:32.039 I set the book aside and moved on. In a 194 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:35.200 massive refforts room, between our dated atlases and county reports, 195 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:38.399 I thumbed through several volumes. One check out card began 196 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:40.679 in the spidery handwriting of the nineteen fifty s M. 197 00:09:40.759 --> 00:09:43.720 Jensen April nineteen, nineteen fifty five, but half way through 198 00:09:43.720 --> 00:09:46.679 a signature, the pen had lifted. The rest was replaced 199 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:49.919 by a pictogram, a circle bisected by a single hurroots lash, 200 00:09:50.159 --> 00:09:53.399 as if intention had vanished midstroke. Another book revealed the 201 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:56.000 sequence of initials es spe ah that started normal, and 202 00:09:56.039 --> 00:09:57.759 a cave line by line into what could have been 203 00:09:57.759 --> 00:10:01.039 a semic writing or a child's imitation thereof. Each frind 204 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:02.759 was odd, but not so unique as to see my 205 00:10:02.759 --> 00:10:05.799 isolated It felt as if in each some one had 206 00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:08.200 started to record real intent and then changed their mind, 207 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:11.240 or perhaps had lost track of what they wanted. Inside 208 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:14.240 the old, mostly nord mapped chess, I found a pamphlet 209 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:16.720 from the early fall Out shelter ear. Its check of 210 00:10:16.799 --> 00:10:19.279 card was a thick card stalk yellowed at the edges. 211 00:10:19.960 --> 00:10:22.000 Only a single field had been filled, just to dick 212 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:25.200 twenty twenty eighth s last six slash twenty, not far 213 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:28.759 off pass, but four years into this future. No signature, 214 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:32.120 no indication of the intended borrower. It was impossible, and 215 00:10:32.200 --> 00:10:35.879 yet starkly prisoned in blue green arch, evelynk. The improbabilities 216 00:10:35.879 --> 00:10:37.799 sent a prickling sensation up the back of my neck. 217 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:41.519 Now I was thoroughly engaged with a growing sack of anomalies. 218 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:43.519 I began to reach out first to Esther, who I 219 00:10:43.559 --> 00:10:46.320 found deep in a rill of Sensus microphone. She cocked 220 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:48.440 anighbrow at my pile, tilting her head to examine the 221 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:53.039 newest find cataloging experiments. She posited, speculating that librarians in 222 00:10:53.080 --> 00:10:56.399 the past sometimes tested or practiced handwriting styles on sample cards. 223 00:10:57.279 --> 00:10:59.720 She pointed to the odd pictogram and said that's almost 224 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:02.000 for an Maybe someone was dueling while waiting for slow 225 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:05.039 day returns. George wondered over a while I was digging 226 00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:07.960 for more in the muffin scented staff lounge. His approach 227 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.960 to such things was typically pragmatic. I showed him the 228 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:14.039 twenty twenty eight D eight weird old drunk all over the place. 229 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:16.519 He shruge. Found a love letter in a copy of 230 00:11:16.559 --> 00:11:18.799 Modern Plumbing, wants meant for some one name brook Up. 231 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:21.159 Nobody in town by that name, but who's to say? 232 00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:24.519 On Tuesdays, I spent hours cross referenting the found names 233 00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:28.720 against our local archives, some physical, some digitized. The process 234 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:33.000 was exhausting, but curdled quickly into fascination. Many signatures belonged 235 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:35.519 to no resident, not in any decade, not in marriage 236 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:38.840 or death records. Others led to curious a contradiction. The 237 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:41.919 signature Tommy Redcliffe, written in a nineteen twelve copy of 238 00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:44.240 The River's Edge, matched the legend of a local child 239 00:11:44.279 --> 00:11:46.480 who vanished in nineteen thirty, almost as if the book 240 00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:48.840 itself was its own echo, one year before anyone even 241 00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:52.200 considered Tommy missing one another. I recognized the name of 242 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:55.279 a living town from mister A. Las Brogan, who serves 243 00:11:55.279 --> 00:11:57.200 now on his owning committee, and whom I accosted at 244 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:00.159 the coffee shop. He denied ever checking out anything at 245 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:03.080 the public library, not even as a child. When shown 246 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:05.759 the card, he looked genuinely befuddled, traced the lines with 247 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:08.480 a finger, and then eyes shining a bit, laughed. Maybe 248 00:12:08.519 --> 00:12:11.039 I meant to and forgot a pattern, if it could 249 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:14.279 be called, that began to reveal itself. These strange cards 250 00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:17.000 were most commonly unnoted in books which had barely circulated. 251 00:12:17.080 --> 00:12:20.240 Tucked in corners were thus claimed ownership. It was almost 252 00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:22.440 as if neglect were absence had drawn these in complete 253 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:25.799 records to themselves, a clustering of an attention or perhaps expectancy. 254 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:29.759 Every card was a new contradiction. Some seemed almost playful, 255 00:12:29.799 --> 00:12:32.240 a blank signature field signed with a single loose spiral 256 00:12:32.279 --> 00:12:35.200 instead of a name. Others were solemn, the single word 257 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:37.919 a toment where a surname should be not one for it. 258 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:40.799 Any category was this the work of a cataloger with 259 00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:44.000 a pension for the whimsical. What was someone actively playing 260 00:12:44.039 --> 00:12:47.120 with the notion of checkout itself, deliberately inserting inconsistencies to 261 00:12:47.200 --> 00:12:51.000 undermine the record's authority. I began studying handwriting. Some cards 262 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:53.960 had the careful slanting style of past head librarians, but 263 00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:57.200 just as many didn't match any sample we preserved. Some 264 00:12:57.279 --> 00:13:00.320 signatures changed styles within a single card, mutating for because 265 00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:02.240 of to block letters, or from adult to what might 266 00:13:02.279 --> 00:13:04.919 have been a child, or someone writing left handed. The 267 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:07.840 transformation was subtle but continuous, a kind of flux rather 268 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:10.759 than simple error. By the close of that restless week, 269 00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:13.799 it was clear these were not scattered blunders, no pranks 270 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:16.720 to could achieve the scale or variety without detection unless 271 00:13:16.759 --> 00:13:18.720 every librarian over a hundred years had been a part 272 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:21.960 time trickster. The more cards I located, the more intentional 273 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:23.799 each scened, not quite secret but not meant to be 274 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:27.440 legible to OUs eiders. The act of finding became tinged withal. 275 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:30.120 It began to feel as if the cards themselves were 276 00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:32.360 waiting to be found, or perhaps were in the process 277 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:35.240 of becoming. Each discovery deepened my sense that there was 278 00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:37.960 a game hidden here, with rules that kept shifting. That 279 00:13:38.080 --> 00:13:40.440 was the point when my questions mutated, not just who 280 00:13:40.559 --> 00:13:43.159 or how many, but how and why? How could cards 281 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:45.639 alter their language and even their physical state with time? 282 00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:48.080 Why were some so precise a date in the future, 283 00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:50.559 a scribble turning into absence, a name half recalled and 284 00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:54.279 half invented, and more insistent. If the system of record 285 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:56.960 was supposed to bring clarity, why did these fragments radiate 286 00:13:57.039 --> 00:14:00.559 not confusion but expectation, like unfinished promises linger in the air. 287 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:03.600 I carried these questions to Lino on a gray morning, 288 00:14:03.639 --> 00:14:05.679 when the early frost clungt to a river bank grass. 289 00:14:06.360 --> 00:14:08.600 She looked, worn out, pouring over budges, and where she 290 00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:11.320 claimed was a haunt of printer install I spread the 291 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:13.759 latest samples before her, cards in three different hands, some 292 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:16.320 with dates, some with nothing but a line broken and confusion. 293 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:19.320 She looked them over, then the corner of one, and said, 294 00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:21.720 it makes me nervous for the collection. Honestly, if we 295 00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:23.879 don't know how many records are missing or wrong, we 296 00:14:23.919 --> 00:14:26.960 can't know what's here at all. She tried to reassure herself. 297 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:29.639 But it must just be all losted weird filing errors 298 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:32.639 will restore order. She added a line in her notebook, 299 00:14:32.679 --> 00:14:36.799 anyway check legacy card's re inconsistencies. George listened as I 300 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:40.240 recounted my theory of an ongoing phenomenon. He smirked and 301 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:42.559 told a new story. Once found my nickname and a 302 00:14:42.559 --> 00:14:44.600 card in a book about flag Eticotte years before I 303 00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:46.759 started here. No one called me Buck but my uncle 304 00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:49.480 from Tennessee, and he'd never been. He shook his head, 305 00:14:49.480 --> 00:14:52.879 half dismissive, half remembering the effect of these stories didn't 306 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:56.080 settles Panicolovus were in ways both professional and personal, to 307 00:14:56.120 --> 00:14:58.799 attach to the tangible marvels and failures of record keeping 308 00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:01.159 for that. But what settled as was the notion that 309 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:03.840 a system itself might be porous or unfinished, that someone 310 00:15:03.879 --> 00:15:06.519 or something conscribe brecks not for recal, but for deferral 311 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:10.080 or even anticipation. One evening after lock up, I returned 312 00:15:10.120 --> 00:15:12.600 to a fairy tale collection I'd examined only days before. 313 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:16.440 The checkout card, once initialed and half smudged, now sported 314 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:18.840 a new symbol riding the margins, a double loopment dissected 315 00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:21.600 by a cross. The earlier initials were paler as if 316 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:24.559 retreating into the paper beneath the new remark, I couldn't 317 00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:27.000 have made a mistake. I prided myself on careful observation, 318 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:29.919 but now forced to admit the evidence, it was clear 319 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:33.039 that the cart had changed. Esther back in her alcove 320 00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:36.039 provided another clue. I brought her the card to cross 321 00:15:36.120 --> 00:15:39.679 reference with a stack of journals documenting local legends. She 322 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:42.679 leafed through, gesturing for silence, and then set her finger 323 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:45.000 to her page. In the nineteen thirty one River Town Chronicle. 324 00:15:45.559 --> 00:15:48.000 There in faded ink was a reference to an unfinished 325 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:50.159 check in a story of a schoolgirl returning a book 326 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:53.039 that had no record of ever being loaned. In the margin, 327 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:54.879 a sigil similar to that on my card, a kind 328 00:15:54.879 --> 00:15:57.399 of looping hashtig was dudled as a child might What 329 00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:01.159 did that mean? Where these notations referenced stories never properly 330 00:16:01.159 --> 00:16:04.159 added to the library's official logs, or perhaps stories not 331 00:16:04.279 --> 00:16:08.080 yet told the cards. The possibilities were changing over time 332 00:16:08.200 --> 00:16:10.960 and in response to being noticed, like a ledger not 333 00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:13.639 quite willing to become fixed, not quite ready to settle 334 00:16:13.639 --> 00:16:16.360 into the past. By then I understood these were not 335 00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:21.399 randomness nor lost catalog in traditions nor casual mistakes, the scale, 336 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:25.559 variety and mutability. This was something with intent, rhythm, and ambiguity. 337 00:16:26.120 --> 00:16:28.120 I realized I had to see the entire range to 338 00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:31.240 understand what sort of order could contain so much ongoing uncertainty. 339 00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:34.559 I needed to reach the source from which these fragments emanated. 340 00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:37.759 That night, I hesitated by door. I had only half remembered. 341 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.799 The sub basement archive, with its iron banded door and 342 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:43.399 smell of flooded cement, was the last realm with secrets. 343 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:45.879 Might be more than legend. It was the space most 344 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.879 of us acknowledged but didn't enter. Lena had mentioned it 345 00:16:48.919 --> 00:16:51.480 only in the context of structural concerns. When the inspector 346 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:54.799 came by last autumn, George, on request found the correct 347 00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:58.120 skeleton key, his monologue only half joking, if nobody's seen 348 00:16:58.159 --> 00:17:00.000 you in a week, I'll send in Zoie with the flat. 349 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:03.879 The door stark, but we muscled it aside. The sub 350 00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:06.240 basement ceilings were low and thick with cobweb, the floor 351 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:09.839 pitted by a century of sievage. Cabinets lined the dusty walls, 352 00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:13.279 some still bearing labels and calligraphy. Here were more ledgers 353 00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:16.079 and log books, data sheets, and hand managed indexes to 354 00:17:16.119 --> 00:17:19.200 books no longer held or perhaps never acquired. On the 355 00:17:19.240 --> 00:17:21.960 third Cabernet, I found Elijah wedge tight between two milty 356 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:25.079 black and knock have boxes. It was heavier than it looked, 357 00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:28.359 and marked unwarped by generations of moisture and pressure. With 358 00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:31.720 real effort, I pried it free. Leona hung back, half 359 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:35.039 protective of her authority, half awed by us bellunking. She 360 00:17:35.079 --> 00:17:38.440 agreed with George, spend fifteen minutes no more. I sat 361 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:40.519 on a crate and let the weakbeam of George's headlamp 362 00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:43.559 settle across the first page. The writing on the Elijah 363 00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:48.119 was recognizable and shudderingly strained multiple hands, shifting line by line, 364 00:17:48.519 --> 00:17:52.079 page after page of unfinished less names, intentions, tasks started 365 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:54.720 and uncompleted, half written notes, and the kind of incomplete 366 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:58.039 messages it distracted librarian might leave for herself but never finish. 367 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:00.400 There were partial sketches, half a map, part of a 368 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:03.039 musical staff, the beginnings of a recipe, written and abandoned 369 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.559 mid direction. Some names matched the found cards exactly, but 370 00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:09.200 in almost all cases the ledger's reference preceded the card's 371 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:13.000 appearance by weeks, months, decades, and Just as often the 372 00:18:13.079 --> 00:18:14.960 names were those of residents who had never set foot 373 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:16.759 in the building or were long dead by the time 374 00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:20.119 the library was founded. I recognized one from a tombstone 375 00:18:20.119 --> 00:18:22.480 I had seen in the old Lutheran Cemetery, dated eighteen 376 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:25.440 thirty three. Then there were the future dates scattered throughout, 377 00:18:25.599 --> 00:18:28.960 entries marked a week or month ahead, sometimes further Arthur 378 00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:32.160 surveying completed twenty twenty four, slash five, slash four return 379 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:35.759 and accorded July twenty twenty nine. One page was nothing 380 00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:38.759 but a running list of initiated requests, many never resolved, 381 00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:42.519 their status columns filled with floating ellipses. The further I read, 382 00:18:42.599 --> 00:18:44.519 the more I had the sensation of an inventory, not 383 00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:47.319 a facts, but of alternatives of things that had almost happened, 384 00:18:47.400 --> 00:18:50.200 records that balanced just on the edge of realization. I 385 00:18:50.279 --> 00:18:53.480 tested several names, running them backward through our digital catalog, 386 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:55.839 through the old staff rosters, and even down into the 387 00:18:55.839 --> 00:18:59.640 footnotes of Ester's oral histories. The references in the legispan time, 388 00:18:59.720 --> 00:19:02.759 played and sometimes large. A chemiss Altman's request to borrow 389 00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:05.079 a book before the town's founding, a sequence of partial 390 00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:07.400 signatures dated to years in which the library was closed 391 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:10.599 for repairs. The handwriting continued to morph, as if every 392 00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:13.240 attempt to set something down in intention, a name, partial 393 00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:16.079 act became inscribed with the flavor of its incompletion, what 394 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:19.119 names should have ended? Sometimes there were only trailing lines 395 00:19:19.160 --> 00:19:22.400 faded into suggestion. As I turned page after page, a 396 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:25.480 feeling grew not fear but a sword of humility. This 397 00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:29.640 latger was not genealogy, nor a standout library register. It 398 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:32.400 was a mass or record of Astro's potential asteriscudence, with 399 00:19:32.519 --> 00:19:36.079 tasks begun and never finished, messages readied and abandoned. It 400 00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:38.759 recorded not just what occurred, but what had nearly occurred. 401 00:19:39.440 --> 00:19:41.960