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 --> 00:00:11.480 are here, Let's get into it. The library stays open 3 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:13.599 late on Mondays because that's when the book club meets. 4 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:15.599 And even though I no longer have to manage the 5 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:17.519 end of day scramble, I can't seem to break the 6 00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:19.719 old habit of wandering the stacks. As the last straddle 7 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:23.039 is trickle out that evening, the clouds gather low over town, 8 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:25.559 cast in gray shadows. Through the high front windows, across 9 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:28.320 a new rival shelf, I move with a practiced kind 10 00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:31.600 of thoroughness, locating overg mysteries, pushing in askew volumes by 11 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:35.520 the spine. I'm only hearers, volunteered these days, a few 12 00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:37.600 afternoons a week to spare an old habit I can't 13 00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:40.280 shake entirely, now that my mornings consist mostly of tea, 14 00:00:40.359 --> 00:00:43.679 small errands, and conversations with myself. I find a book 15 00:00:43.719 --> 00:00:46.880 on the returns cart. It isn't one I remember seeing before, 16 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:49.759 which is odd not because it looks especially out of place, 17 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:52.280 but because the library is, if nothing else, a model 18 00:00:52.280 --> 00:00:55.280 of reliably eccentric order. The cart sits at an angle, 19 00:00:55.280 --> 00:00:57.920 and the break between biography and fiction, half shaded by 20 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:00.960 the overhanging from the art monographs. I rest my hand 21 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:02.719 on the little run of thrillas and then draw the 22 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:06.799 unfamiliar volumet, feeling the binding's coolness. The slightly uneven plastic 23 00:01:06.799 --> 00:01:10.920 wrap over its cardboard cover, no bar code, no circulation 24 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:13.799 slip in the back. Instead, a plain white tid O 25 00:01:13.879 --> 00:01:16.719 card Tyberton is tucked under the plastic sleeve. The Willow 26 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:19.519 Street accord. The letter is a perfectly straight to stink, 27 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:23.400 but almost programmatic. The date line is blank. I leaf 28 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:27.000 through the pros is released, almost oddly intimate. It infolds 29 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:30.480 along familiar streets, mentioning window boxes filled with pansies, the 30 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:33.040 row of stoborn elms beside the skull fence that sunglass 31 00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:35.760 Old Dob known for barking at nothing in particular. The 32 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:38.920 first person narrative is mesmerizing in its understilldies, the voice 33 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.079 drifting just close enough to unsettle. There is the hint 34 00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:44.319 of a secret beneath the ordinary. Several characters marry him 35 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:46.959 with her sky blue bicycle, Mister Delaney at his potch swing, 36 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.439 a little boy who collects improbable stones or ring bells. 37 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:52.879 I can quite sound as the story inches towards its climax. 38 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:56.159 A chapter ends mid paragraph, and then abruptly, I'm staring 39 00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:59.840 at a wall of blank pages. The last line Marian hesitated, 40 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:03.280 then lean closer as I to and nothing, no more words. 41 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:06.439 I left the page half expecting a trick. But the 42 00:02:06.439 --> 00:02:08.879 remainder of the book is spotless, white, neither yellowed nor 43 00:02:08.919 --> 00:02:11.599 mar by any sign of erasure, not even a water 44 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:14.240 mark or goes to type. I run my thumb along 45 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:17.159 the clean edge. There are few library mysteries I haven't 46 00:02:17.199 --> 00:02:19.439 solved before Missing returns to her an up months later 47 00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:22.199 at the dentist's lost travel ogg through surface behind the 48 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:25.800 radiator and study room. See kids hide paperbacks inside dictionaries 49 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:29.560 and forget them there. But this is different. My skin prickles, 50 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:33.000 not from fear, but a startling, gentle anticipation, as if 51 00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:34.560 the book is waiting for an answer for me that 52 00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:37.240 I don't yet know I can give. Pat our head 53 00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:39.800 librarian emerges from the rufference alcove, hair pinned into a 54 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:42.719 daily tight spiral, cardigan, sleeves nudged up to the elbows. 55 00:02:43.319 --> 00:02:45.319 She's always had the squat solo wet of someone born 56 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:48.080 practical and proud of it. When I hand heard a manuscript, 57 00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:51.199 She's quint at the cover. Never seen this one, pat says, 58 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.719 some sort of indie zene. There's no barcode. I show 59 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:58.960 her the blank final pages and the absence of any mark, publisher, author, 60 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:01.919 even a half hearted damp. She turns it over in 61 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:05.159 her hands, knocks the spine on her Palman snorts. Could 62 00:03:05.159 --> 00:03:07.240 be a ghost stoner, you know, the sort who slip 63 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.319 things in and enjoy watching as puzzle. She as with 64 00:03:10.400 --> 00:03:12.879 a half smile. I still find coffee, loyalty cards and 65 00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:15.960 return books. May be the town's finally getting creative. But 66 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:18.560 when she drops the manuscript onto her desk, I can't 67 00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:21.960 quite release it from my mind. There's a sense fluttering 68 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:24.639 just beneath my ribs that something familiar has been left 69 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:26.280 in complete, like a memory you reach for as you 70 00:03:26.319 --> 00:03:29.759 are waking, almost tangible but just out of reach. That night, 71 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:32.520 lying in the dark, I do not feel afraid. The 72 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:34.560 room is quiet, except for the lower tick of pipes 73 00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:36.840 under the floorboard, the nacollect to come of the ancient 74 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:39.520 refrigerator in the next room. What strikes me isn't the 75 00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:41.439 possibility of a ghost, but the hush of a question 76 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:44.759 left hanging, gentle but persistent, the kind of question that 77 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:46.879 arrives as you're shoving books and lingers, even when you 78 00:03:46.879 --> 00:03:50.039 turn out the lights. Most days since retirement blend quietly 79 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:52.759 reading the morning paper, staring out at the overgrown privet, 80 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:55.879 losing myself in gentle routine. I keep the old notebooks 81 00:03:55.879 --> 00:03:58.039 from my teaching years, stacked capacity at the end of 82 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:01.840 my desk. Some still pers with bookwarks from old curriculum guides. 83 00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:04.599 Others conceal and finished fairy tales or essays whose endings 84 00:04:04.639 --> 00:04:07.360 I never managed to frame. There is always something half 85 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:10.120 done in my left cliff recipes and sent postcards, stray 86 00:04:10.159 --> 00:04:13.080 lines I once imagined for a poem and never dared complete. 87 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:15.479 My afternoons at the library have settled into a pattern 88 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:18.560 both comforting and just shy of mundane. The building itself 89 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:20.920 is a little out of plum, a rambling nineteen twenty 90 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:24.480 structure of red brick, foggy glass, and creaking floors. The 91 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:26.759 front reading room is bright bathed in winter sun or 92 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:30.160 summer haze. A children's section, once cheerful, wears its faded 93 00:04:30.199 --> 00:04:31.959 mural of berries in rolling fields with a kind of 94 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:35.920 stoic bride. There are offices one principle one shared shells 95 00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:38.120 double back to back and groaning in the staff break room, 96 00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:41.240 then hidden behind a utility closet. The basement stairs descend 97 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:43.600 into lowlied Archive place I once dubbed the Kingdom of 98 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:46.920 Colonial Das. Mel is there this week, bustling and distracted 99 00:04:47.079 --> 00:04:50.240 as ever, fingers stained from hig attempts of fiction. She 100 00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:53.439 keeps her notebook stopped everywhere between John Michelle's, wedged under 101 00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:56.079 the return's cart, sometimes even left open atop the cards 102 00:04:56.079 --> 00:04:59.199 scanner until Pat finds them in size. Mel is younger, 103 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:01.720 caught half way between ambition and the easy comfort of 104 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:04.399 this place. She wants to write the next great novel, 105 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:08.120 she tells me, but mostly she writes verst pages. Mister Ewan, run, 106 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:10.800 shouldered in spry for his eighty something years, arrives each 107 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:13.319 morning before the doors open. He is a relic of 108 00:05:13.319 --> 00:05:16.160 the libraries, golden Aird, always with some crease cliff into show, 109 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:18.279 always ready to remind us of the by gun story 110 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:20.879 I was that once drew children here toree deep. He 111 00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:23.639 floats through the aisles, muttering small jokes about the day 112 00:05:23.639 --> 00:05:26.720 when archives sat like kings and queens, atop their hoarded knowledge. 113 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:29.519 I have always liked mister Ewan. He knows that libraries 114 00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:31.399 are run on gossip as much as on books, and 115 00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:33.360 he shares the tames little stories in a way that 116 00:05:33.439 --> 00:05:36.439 makes them seem larger than they really are. Other regulars 117 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:38.920 drew through after skill of bouncing in for easy chapter 118 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:41.800 books and jelly bracelets, History club stalwarts who never quite 119 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:44.839 finished their research, a small circle of retirees who trade 120 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:48.600 recipes as often as mysteries. Somewhere in these conversations over 121 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:50.839 mugs of luquarm tea, under the gentle hum of the 122 00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:53.560 seiling fans, there exists a legend repeated mostly by those 123 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:57.720 who have worked here too long. They're whispering shelves where secrets, 124 00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:01.000 so it said, are quietly absorbed. Hat laughs it all off, 125 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:04.040 but even she insists. We maintain the phantom catalog in 126 00:06:04.079 --> 00:06:06.560 a break room, half joking, half to find a spiral 127 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:09.279 band ledger for items that nobody remembers buying, shoving, or 128 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:12.639 even requesting. I mention the odd manuscript to mel a Thursday, 129 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:14.480 as we eat carrot cake from a plate. Balance to 130 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:18.079 top the mail cub unfinish, he said, she asks, as 131 00:06:18.120 --> 00:06:22.319 brightening like there is just nothing. At the end. Blank 132 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:25.639 pages are reply passing her. The book now marks no 133 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:27.959 author and the story itself. If you squint, eat swear 134 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.160 it's about this very town, but only half way there. 135 00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:33.360 Mel flips through, inspects the type, then scribbles a note 136 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.319 for later. Maybe you're overthinking it, she says, with a 137 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:39.720 half smile. Maybe we got pranked, or maybe someone's leaving 138 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:43.319 us narrative breadcrumbs. The thought doesn't leave me, though. I 139 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:45.879 jot the title in my ledger of aughtities next to 140 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:48.279 the time A travel guide to Vlatovostuk appeared for three 141 00:06:48.319 --> 00:06:51.279 weeks before vanishing again. When I return for my next 142 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:53.680 shift a week later, the library is quite except for 143 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:55.720 the sound of the track cycling and the occasional thought 144 00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:58.480 of books being deposited in the returns bin. I head 145 00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:01.160 for the usual cat expecting a run of battered mysteries. 146 00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:05.079 There's another manuscript. Unlike the first. This one is a 147 00:07:05.079 --> 00:07:07.519 little thicker, abound in what appears to be handcut cover's 148 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:10.279 navy blue paper over chipboard page I just flecked, just slightly, 149 00:07:10.279 --> 00:07:12.560 as if it's been handled often but never really used. 150 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:15.560 No title on the spine, just a plain front panel. 151 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:18.160 When I open it, I see the story starts in 152 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:21.319 media rares, a carpenter's exasperation, a broken chair, a child's 153 00:07:21.399 --> 00:07:24.360 urgent question about what it means to start over. Prose 154 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:26.079 is amurse of draws you in like the tail end 155 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:29.240 of someone else's recollection. The author's name, my double check, 156 00:07:29.319 --> 00:07:32.360 isn't in any regional or state writing association, isn't popular, 157 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:35.560 isn't even google able? Again, the story doesn't so much 158 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:38.279 end as fall into nothing. This one stops just as 159 00:07:38.279 --> 00:07:41.040 the main character, James, sits at the kitchen table pondering 160 00:07:41.079 --> 00:07:42.879 and offer a chance to move away, a fresh stop. 161 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:45.959 But the sentence never concludes. There is only a notion 162 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.120 of a marked, creamy white paper before the back cover 163 00:07:48.199 --> 00:07:51.720 closes quietly in my hand. Trying to check the circulation log, 164 00:07:51.800 --> 00:07:54.800 I'm greeted by a string of blant database fields, no 165 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:57.319 check in, check out, or even an accession number in 166 00:07:57.319 --> 00:08:02.000 the system. The library's network fastidiously locks every barcode, every reservation. 167 00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:05.240 But when a scan this manuscript's cover, the reader chirps 168 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:08.439 in error, refusing to acknowledge its presence. I searched the 169 00:08:08.439 --> 00:08:11.000 bin behind the desk. It was locked last night. The 170 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:13.519 practice here is strict pat locks. The returns at six, 171 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:16.079 opens them again at nine the next morning, and inspects 172 00:08:16.079 --> 00:08:19.680 the contents before shelving. Yet no one recalled handling this book, 173 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:23.800 let alone cat logging it like assault pat. She furrows 174 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:26.360 her brown launches into a mini lecture about the importance 175 00:08:26.360 --> 00:08:30.120 of standardized succession locks. Mal suggests to Kirilla novelists saw 176 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:33.120 on the loose, distributing mysterious tales across small libraries, and 177 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:35.559 there's a note of genuine delight in her suggestion, as 178 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:38.960 if she wouldn't mind joining their number. Mister Ewan, when asked, 179 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:42.600 grins broadly. Oh, and finished business? Is it? Maybe someone's 180 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:44.639 making a statement about all the stories we never get 181 00:08:44.679 --> 00:08:47.600 around to telling. But his smile fades into contemplation as 182 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:50.879 he thumbs the pages. It's Fanny, this one. Some details 183 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:53.159 feel like something I half remember from years back that 184 00:08:53.240 --> 00:08:57.480 happened to my cousin, Maybe or didn't. Something sharpens behind 185 00:08:57.519 --> 00:08:59.919 his eyes, it as if the story flies close to 186 00:09:00.159 --> 00:09:03.440 truth but not close enough to name. Expectation shudders ever, 187 00:09:03.519 --> 00:09:06.120 because a chain of custody, a time mine, a digital trace. 188 00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:08.679 But here are volumes that from the day before to 189 00:09:08.679 --> 00:09:11.000 the day after seemed to enter material existence at the 190 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:13.960 moment they are discovered. I sow to Handriton Locke a 191 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:15.879 new notebook I keep tugged in my old Cardigan's in 192 00:09:15.919 --> 00:09:18.480 a pocket, date, description, point of discovery, and as much 193 00:09:18.519 --> 00:09:21.200 information as I can glean. It's thin so far, just 194 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:23.440 the two, but the urge grows with each odd, blank 195 00:09:23.480 --> 00:09:27.200 back volume. Perhaps I think it will stop there, But 196 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:31.360 over the following two weeks, Dread's quiet cousin curiosity finds 197 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:35.080 its footing. Three more manuscripts appear, always in the late mornings, 198 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:37.759 always on the returns cart, never in the logs, never 199 00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:40.879 recalled by staff. Their bindings are distinct. One a battered 200 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:43.799 based viral, another wrap to max green claw, the third 201 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:46.919 and faded blue green of a kitchen notebook. Each story, 202 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:50.200 I quickly learn, is as compelling as the last. One 203 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:53.240 follows a former mayor long vanished from local view during 204 00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:56.080 his last months in office. The second, to perhaps the 205 00:09:56.080 --> 00:09:58.440 most striking, is written from the perspective of a samstress, 206 00:09:58.519 --> 00:10:01.519 mysterious and almost familiar, who, in the story abruptly gives 207 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:03.399 up her cough after a visit from a customer known 208 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:06.799 for changing her mind. Each narrative ends not with the conclusion, 209 00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:09.399 but at the edge of climax, a half revealed decision, 210 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:13.679 a confession undelivered. Each again leaves the final pages untouched. 211 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:16.120 Each transition to blinkness is abrupted and is absolute to 212 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:19.080 dropping a curtain across the stage. Whenever I look up 213 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:21.759 the supposed authors, the names or ghosts themselves not in 214 00:10:21.799 --> 00:10:24.840 any tann record, skull register, or even the sundry rosters 215 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:28.080 of local volunteer committees. No one in the digitized uck 216 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.000 out with those surnames or first names. Yet the settings 217 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:34.000 are unmistakable. In abandoned water tower, Rosy's vickery, the little 218 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.879 statue of a dog at Pleasant Park. These are places 219 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:39.519 only locals would bother to mention, let alone describe with 220 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:43.759 such fidelity. On my Tuesday afternoon, melsits behind the circulation desk, 221 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:46.720 muttering to herself as she scrawls beginnings in her spiral. 222 00:10:47.440 --> 00:10:50.200 She pauses, finds one manuscript and tries on a wild 223 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:52.120 notion to write an ending herself on the blank pages, 224 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:55.240 using her favorite pen. The ink she swears, hovers for 225 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:57.080 a second, then beads and runs away, as if the 226 00:10:57.120 --> 00:11:00.000 paper rejects it. Later, when I take a sheet to say, 227 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.039 whip into the typoter I keep for special labels. The 228 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:04.840 carriage jawns, the ribbonsticks. No letter forms appear, as though 229 00:11:04.840 --> 00:11:07.679 the keys no longer leave their trace. The blank pages 230 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:12.639 remain on skate, pristine, stubbornly absorbing nothing. Every arch cataloger 231 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:16.559 organizes an impromptu review session in the staff room. She's amused, 232 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:19.440 more annoyed than inspired, treating the matter as another oddity 233 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:20.960 to be shelved, a tossed in the box for the 234 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:24.559 next friends of a library sale word donations. She calls 235 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:28.120 them maybe some failed vanity publisher making a joke at 236 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:32.720 our expense. Meanwhile, the patrons take notice. A regular massess 237 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:35.320 der remarks that the first manuscript feels just so much 238 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:37.639 like something I used to think would happen here. You know. 239 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:41.080 A high schooler glancing at the seamstress story, blushes and 240 00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:43.000 claims she had a dream with the very same character, 241 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.759 made an impossible choice, all without knowing how it would end. 242 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:49.039 I took these observations into my notebook, now growing more 243 00:11:49.080 --> 00:11:52.159 crowded with each shift. It isn't the accumulation of books 244 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:54.080 that bothers me. It's the momentum. The sense that these 245 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:56.639 are stories at the edge of recollection, neither real nor 246 00:11:56.679 --> 00:12:01.159 simply invented. Are these books being seated deliberately? If so, 247 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:03.679 who is the author and why use names untraceable in 248 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:07.120 town records? How do these volumes seem so perfectly attuned 249 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:10.559 to half remembered experiences or lives not quite lived? And 250 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:13.279 most strikingly, why does nobody ever see them appear on 251 00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:16.639 the cart The staff routines are methodical, the bin is secure, 252 00:12:16.679 --> 00:12:19.720 the cut swapped only under observed protocol. Yet the books 253 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:22.600 appear always unheralded, as if deposited by the quietest hand, 254 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:26.279 known only to the building itself. My questions sprawl mirrored 255 00:12:26.279 --> 00:12:29.759 in the jagged margins of my notebook. One evening, shoving 256 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:32.200 near the southwestern windows, I pause over the fifth Verst 257 00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:35.360 six manuscript to surface a story about a local teacher's career, 258 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:38.919 echoing details suspiciously precise, a teaching award that was never delivered, 259 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.399 a slept for well speech and spoken at a last assembly, 260 00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:44.440 and most pointedly, the disappearance of a promising student no 261 00:12:44.480 --> 00:12:47.759 one talked about. Half hurry, I approach him, as cavanaught 262 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:50.960 the retired teacher. The story seems to match. She laughs 263 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:53.600 at first reading the opening pages, but her brought tightems 264 00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:57.639 with each paragraph. This is my life, she whispers. No 265 00:12:57.679 --> 00:12:59.679 one knows, no one but me. I never told anyone 266 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:02.240 about that, not even in those journals I kept for years. 267 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:04.080 There's no way you could know this unless unless you 268 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:07.240 lived it, or live beside it. We sit in the libraries, 269 00:13:07.240 --> 00:13:09.320 back reading, look for a long moment, the sun cutting. 270 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:13.000 Fractured lines cross the carpet. Finally a mess. Kavanaugh pushes 271 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:15.960 the manuscript away. He think this is a prank or 272 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.480 what the kind of Ledgary Saint. I meet her eyes, unsure. 273 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:22.639 It's not just you, I say quietly, there are other 274 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:27.279 stories that know too much. Somehow, a collaboration emerges. Mel 275 00:13:27.480 --> 00:13:29.720 delighted by the chance to move from theory to practice, 276 00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:32.200 helps me compare manuscripts with the scraps and foodnotes of 277 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:35.440 local history. We assemble a growing chot on a legal pad, 278 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:37.519 matching each story to the shadow of a real event, 279 00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:40.039 not always public. Sometimes I only guessed it by a 280 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:43.039 few some details slept in shimmer of today's version, not 281 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:45.480 quite matching the last. As if meaning tries and fails 282 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:48.360 to cement itself, it is as if in the act 283 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:51.480 of reading, small troops become momentarily tangible before dissolving back 284 00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:55.200 into possibility. It's mel who tentatively offers the observation that 285 00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:59.000 cements our next stage. What if she muses these books 286 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:01.120 aren't just ripples of the town stories. What if they 287 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:04.360 are kind of record unfinished lives, Pou's moments, stories not 288 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:07.720 written but almost lived. The idea catches when settling but 289 00:14:07.799 --> 00:14:11.279 not unwelcome. We run a quiet experiment comparing the narrative 290 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:13.519 side by side with our own recollections and those of 291 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:17.039 select patrons, and notice sometimes with each rereading, a detailed 292 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:20.240 edges close out to memory or receipt again a mothers regret, 293 00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:22.840 fine substance in the description of an absent child's coat. 294 00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:24.960 A carpenters and unproject, howevers at the edge of a 295 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:28.840 remembered work bench. Some version of every story seems belongs 296 00:14:28.840 --> 00:14:32.279 to the almost moments of someone somewhere. It becomes harder 297 00:14:32.279 --> 00:14:35.200 to believe the phenomenon is randomness or even mere local mischief. 298 00:14:35.720 --> 00:14:38.200 I begin to feel that something is gathering here, something 299 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:41.279 more than a series of baffin donations or misplaced manuscripts. 300 00:14:41.919 --> 00:14:44.559 The stories don't always describe what happened, But one nearly 301 00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:47.360 did they fulfill not the desire for completion, but the 302 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:50.320 strange plain to vague, for the unfinish the possible. For 303 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:52.399 the first time in years, I feel a prickle of 304 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:56.600 unfamiliar joy. Discovery is a living, shared project. The contradiction 305 00:14:56.679 --> 00:15:00.200 seems not just bigger, but fundamentally different from normal library problems. 306 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:03.120 If the building is a collector of narratives, is one 307 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:06.919 that prefers possibility to certainty. One afternoon, when the wind 308 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.240 hurls a flurry of seat against the windows, I realize 309 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:11.879 the strongest step must be taken. It's not enough to 310 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:15.200 simply observe. As more volumes appear. If there is a pattern, 311 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:16.840 and I know now there must be, even if it 312 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:20.240 resists analysis, perhaps the library itself or its history holds 313 00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:22.960 the key. I launch a personal project, a catalog in 314 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:26.279 each mysterious manuscript, with as much detail as possible. I 315 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:29.480 keep date and location of discovery, story summary, any known 316 00:15:29.519 --> 00:15:32.559 or suspected match to local people or events. For each 317 00:15:32.840 --> 00:15:35.039 I add a column unfinished for red, a note to 318 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:38.559 describe in what way the stories climax lingers unresolved, with 319 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:40.919 the sense of charged anticipation, one not felt since my 320 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.080 first weeks on the job decades ago. I descend to 321 00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:46.320 the basement archive. The wooden stairs float in vibration with 322 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:48.840 each foot full Down Here, the air is thick with 323 00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:50.919 the reek of old paper and the faintest metallic tan 324 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:54.279 of rusted pipes. All's pulse with the quiet confidence of 325 00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:56.720 decades worth of overflows, And for garden ledges. There are 326 00:15:56.720 --> 00:15:59.679 cardboard boxes labeled in handwriting, now long dead, and spines 327 00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:02.600 peels in the damp like overright fruit. The old ock 328 00:16:02.639 --> 00:16:05.519 of his office houses a battered wooden filing cabinet, waged 329 00:16:05.519 --> 00:16:07.759 behind a half collapsed stack of weather atlases and out 330 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:10.919 of date tax guides. On its front, a crooked metal label, 331 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:14.159 index and cataloged. I draw the top drawer, open once 332 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:15.879 mooth at the edge, and pull out an entire nest 333 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:19.240 of index cards, scrolled in spindly penmanship. The names, at 334 00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:24.039 first seen nonsensical, model Francis, pedal brown. Every few cards, 335 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:27.600 the date nineteen fifty two, the nineteen nineteen, then impossibly 336 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:30.279 a jotting in barely faded marker nineteen ninety three and 337 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:33.480 twenty twenty one years nearly layered atop each other with 338 00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:35.799 a swift, odd motion. The cause slide against my touch 339 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:38.240 is a static or perhaps a feint air current is 340 00:16:38.279 --> 00:16:41.159 at work. The order changes as I look. Querrey thought 341 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:43.159 to find the Willow Street accord. Now there is a 342 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:46.000 partial list of promises, credited to no one in particular. 343 00:16:46.679 --> 00:16:51.120 Next James's kitchen table under a name I know can exist. Experimenting, 344 00:16:51.159 --> 00:16:53.080 I close the drawer halfway call up Pat to show 345 00:16:53.080 --> 00:16:56.919 her the shifting order. She arrives skepticals always, and when 346 00:16:56.960 --> 00:16:59.039 she pulls open the drawer, the first card is different 347 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:01.480 to the title Gone and new hand evident, the pattern 348 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:04.960 altered yet again, wasn't that that accord? Once? She asks, 349 00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:09.880 I nod hat's eyes. The archive has always had its corks, 350 00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:13.200 but I've never seen it. She lets the drawer slie closed, 351 00:17:13.359 --> 00:17:16.200 ponders her lips pursed. I'd like to think her run 352 00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:19.240 attached ship, she finally says, but maybe it's the building 353 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:21.680 that gets the final say. I lean into the cool 354 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:24.720 stillness of the dusty archive, listening. It's not fear that 355 00:17:24.759 --> 00:17:27.079 moves in the air, but a gentle, humming question. How 356 00:17:27.160 --> 00:17:30.039 long has this been happening? And why? If the shifting 357 00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:32.359 names and dates can change under a watcher's gaze. Does 358 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:35.119 that mean these stories are always in motion, never fix, 359 00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:38.240 waiting for the moment of remembrance that makes them nearly possible? 360 00:17:38.839 --> 00:17:41.880 A slow sweetness creeps in the idea that the library, 361 00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:44.400 or without its dast permission, could be arch, having not 362 00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:46.440 just the fixed in the publish, but the half lived, 363 00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:49.920 the pause, the unfinished transforms everything. Perhaps this is in 364 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:52.119 the new occurrence, but simply the first time we have 365 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.960 been ready hungry even to witness its unfolding curiosity. Surge 366 00:17:55.960 --> 00:17:57.880 is now not as a hunt for causes, but his 367 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:00.400 desire to learn what it all means. What are the 368 00:18:00.440 --> 00:18:04.160 shifting catalogs keeping safe? Who are they meant for? And 369 00:18:04.200 --> 00:18:06.440 has any one else before us peered into this and 370 00:18:06.519 --> 00:18:09.799 finished shelf of possibilities? I give the cabinet drawer a 371 00:18:09.799 --> 00:18:13.039 gentle nudge. Watch the index settle into a new quiet order, 372 00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:15.680 its cards waiting for eyes willing to see them for 373 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.039 the first time since retirement. I sense a door opening 374 00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:20.559 where I thought all doors were closed. There may be 375 00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:23.799 more unacknowledged history here than any of us have ever imagined. 376 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:26.279 Pat's words it maybe it's the building that gets the 377 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:28.960 final savorubble through me. As we leave the ochaves, closing 378 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:31.200 the cabinet drawer with a sound softer than a sigh. 379 00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:33.640 For the first time a month, I feel less like 380 00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:36.200 a puzzle solver and more like someone being quietly invited 381 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:39.400 into another dimension of belarming. I slid the card label 382 00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:41.880 to partial list to Promises into the pocket of my cardigan, 383 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:43.440 just to see if it will remain the same by 384 00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:45.640 the end of the evening. When I show Mel the 385 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:47.920 card upstairs, she inspects it the same way she would 386 00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:51.640 an inconvenient plot twist, he realized. She murmurs, this is 387 00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:53.799 starting to feel like those experiments where they claim you 388 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:57.000 change things just by looking. She places a single fingership 389 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:00.000 on the name. If the catalog is shifting, Maybe it is, 390 00:19:00.039 --> 00:19:02.720 and a record at all may be its possibility or memory, 391 00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:05.440 or something that happens in between. I tell her about 392 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:07.880 the teacher from the other manuscript, about a Miss Kavenaugh's 393 00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:11.440 unsettled certainty. Mel's eyes widen, and she's so struck that 394 00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:13.799 she forgets her coffee on the windows sill, an unrepeatable 395 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:17.599 event in my experience, I keep thinking. She says, quietly, 396 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:19.680 what is it that actually makes a life feel finished, 397 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:21.680 and are these books about regret or about something we 398 00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:25.160 just haven't given ourselves permission to close? At this something 399 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:27.559 inside me stirs a memory of the mediculous less implans 400 00:19:27.599 --> 00:19:30.000 I left and read in the Farewell's rehearsed but never voiced. 401 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:32.920