WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.320 Tuesday morning had the kind of sunlight I liked clay, 2 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:10.640 but not harsh, warm without being heavy. I parked behind 3 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:13.880 the marble and brick assembly of Glastonbury's Public Library, stretching 4 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:15.599 out a faint ache in my hip and double checking 5 00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:19.079 I locked the car. Retirement wasn't always the canvas people 6 00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:21.480 made it out to be, but volunteering here had rescued 7 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:23.199 me from the odd hours of pacing my living room 8 00:00:23.239 --> 00:00:24.800 and solved the business of what to do with my 9 00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:28.519 fondness for old books and idle conversation, and I suppose 10 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:30.719 for routines that looked tightly wound from their side, but 11 00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:33.799 always left margin for a little wonder. My shoes carried 12 00:00:33.799 --> 00:00:35.840 a faint squeak as I crossed the paved path, skirted 13 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:38.439 a punchy patch of daffodils, and let myself into the 14 00:00:38.439 --> 00:00:41.719 wood and glass main entrance. Dust drifted gently through beams 15 00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:44.079 of late spring light, making every movement a bit dreamlike. 16 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:47.320 Already I could hear the canons of a distant child's whisper, 17 00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:50.280 a settling calf, the low scrape of a chair. The 18 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.119 marble floor reflected streaks of gold broken only by the 19 00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:56.280 bold anchor of the great staircase. The staircase deserved its 20 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:00.000 reputation as a building's grand jewel. Marble yes, but subtle 21 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:02.600 leave vain, A great ridding through cream edges slightly warm 22 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.560 with use, the balstrad ebony polished her comfortable gloss, invited 23 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:09.280 a hand. The whole thing swept gently up and found 24 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:11.719 out of the landing, as if designed for grand entrances 25 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:15.120 and quiet retirements alike. I had walked this steps twice before, 26 00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:17.439 each time admiring the sweep. But to day, with my 27 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:19.760 notebook in hand, in the thought of an organized airhead, 28 00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:22.560 I found myself thinking idly, methodically, the way a math 29 00:01:22.599 --> 00:01:25.560 teacher might what a pequila length that's staircase was. For 30 00:01:25.599 --> 00:01:28.519 no larger reason, I started counting the steps aloud, quietly 31 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:32.280 as I ascended to the reference room. One, two, three. 32 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:35.239 The numbers kept a familiar cadence under my breath, giving 33 00:01:35.319 --> 00:01:39.159 order to the morning. Twenty one. The final step was shallow, 34 00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:42.040 more flourished than a step, but real enough beneath my shoe. 35 00:01:42.519 --> 00:01:46.359 Twenty one seemed a non standard quantity for a public library, 36 00:01:46.359 --> 00:01:48.920 but maybe that was the town's habit of fondness for quirks. 37 00:01:49.640 --> 00:01:51.879 I set hello to missus staveson behind the desk. She 38 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:54.760 responded with her signature, try morning, miss Lane. Tapping her 39 00:01:54.799 --> 00:01:57.519 pencil stacatto style on her ledger, she tallied late fees 40 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:00.439 nose half buried in a cascading pile of return vas. 41 00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:03.799 I'd always like that later if I found my assined 42 00:02:03.879 --> 00:02:05.680 arc kevel box and set up at my usual table 43 00:02:05.719 --> 00:02:08.000 near the windows, which oval of the town's patruck of 44 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:10.280 roof ups and the distant green coilts stretching out toward 45 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:13.000 the hills. I lost myself for a while, and sorting 46 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:15.319 through brittle blueprints, ink bleeding at the edges from some 47 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:18.319 forgotten dam, making steady notes about shelf repairs requested in 48 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:21.599 a fussy script. Some hours later, my espresso in handgon 49 00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:24.280 lucom nature conspired to urge me down the staircase again. 50 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:27.400 Perhaps it was routine, or perhaps it was some stubborn 51 00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:30.280 fragment of curiosity, but as I descended, I began to 52 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:34.840 count again one, two, three. This time, however, arrived at 53 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:39.639 the grand seventeen. I stopped, looked behind me. My shoes 54 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:41.560 were planted at the bottom of the stairs, and by 55 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:44.759 any normal accounting, I'd finished the descent. But where had 56 00:02:44.759 --> 00:02:47.719 the other four steps gone? Had I counted too quickly, 57 00:02:47.719 --> 00:02:50.639 missed a split risor skipped a beat. I retraced a 58 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:53.479 few steps, counting backwards, feeling each lift of my shoe 59 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:57.599 with deliberate attention. Still the number ended at seventeen. I 60 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:00.639 caught my head. I amused, less concerned than just puzzled. 61 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:05.719 A little miscalculation. Perhaps. I counted out the steps again, ascending. 62 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:08.759 Now the count resolved into nineteen. I snorted a little, 63 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:10.719 deciding to shrug it off as an idle slip of 64 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:12.879 the mind, a kind he remembered only when nothing else 65 00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:15.400 pressed for a room. Yet, as I walked away, I 66 00:03:15.439 --> 00:03:18.199 replayed the curdence of numbers in my head. I made 67 00:03:18.199 --> 00:03:20.680 a mental note to pay attention the next visit. It 68 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:22.960 was the kind of harmless odity that took somewhere behind 69 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:25.759 the logical scaffolding of an olderly minder retired school teacher's 70 00:03:25.759 --> 00:03:29.159 blessing and curse. I smiled at the absurdity, telling myself 71 00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:30.759 it was less an omen than a ben addiction from 72 00:03:30.759 --> 00:03:32.560 a building with more years behind it than any one 73 00:03:32.599 --> 00:03:35.960 living could remember. Glastonbury, after all, was a town that 74 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:38.319 prized its traditions and grew stories the way some towns 75 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:41.120 grow moss. The library formed the north anchor of the 76 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:43.680 town green as space, laid out with pleasing geometry, tree 77 00:03:43.719 --> 00:03:46.280 lined walks, a cast iron fountain at the center, burnches 78 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:49.319 faded by a hundred seasons. If he asked the locals, 79 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:51.400 they'd say the library was both the heart and the 80 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:54.120 memory of Glastonbury, a monument to civic pride, a house 81 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:56.800 for history and an inadvertent stage for the communities. And 82 00:03:56.840 --> 00:03:59.919 the small dramas inside the place oc could with gentle, 83 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:03.159 false and reverent silences, broken only by the everyday conversations 84 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:06.960 of staff and regulars. Every table seened occupied by someone notable. 85 00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:10.400 Missus Staveson had librarian ran the place with the careful 86 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:13.319 disapproval of a seasoned conductor. Her patients seemed infinite until 87 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:16.839 it wasn't. A woman of considerable organizational talent, she could 88 00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:18.879 scure a query or cheer away were child with equal 89 00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:21.759 speed her silver bob in room. This classes lent her 90 00:04:21.800 --> 00:04:24.000 the perennial air of a birdwatcher who's seen everything and 91 00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:28.040 kept recor to prove it well. The University student volunteer 92 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:30.600 appeared twice a week, striding and with head funes looped 93 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:33.000 around his neck in a habit of snapping gum. He 94 00:04:33.079 --> 00:04:35.439 handled books, roughly making up for it with charm and 95 00:04:35.480 --> 00:04:39.519 brutal efficiency. Were regarded the library's quirks with arched skepticism, 96 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:42.480 forever half mocking its vibes while proving an cannily adept 97 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:45.319 at tracking down anything that had been misshoved. And then 98 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:48.160 there was mister Finn, white haired and lively, whose hands 99 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:50.879 she crackled like parchment, and whose stories, always beginning with 100 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:52.560 you know and the old days, could drift from the 101 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:54.920 tum mails closing to the proper geometry of Weathervan's without 102 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:57.920 ever landing on the single point. Mister finnew more of 103 00:04:57.959 --> 00:05:00.800 the building's history than any book, yet he'd sooner spind 104 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:03.720 an anecdote than argue for accuracy. My first month in 105 00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:06.680 the archives had been all process and discovery, cataloging rare 106 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:09.360 folios that left in coomb my fingers, leafing through mildewed 107 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:12.360 town council ledges, cross referencing names with mats whose colors 108 00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:15.560 had faded to brittle ghosts. In a sense, the library 109 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.560 offered everything I'd always loved about mathematics, order pattern, the 110 00:05:18.600 --> 00:05:21.439 slow satisfaction of arranging things so that meaning appeared from 111 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:24.120 the jumble force. A week, I observed the ebb and 112 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:27.319 flow of community life, Toddlers babbling under the mural, flying books, 113 00:05:27.399 --> 00:05:30.279 high schoolers doing little actual study, book clubs tucked into 114 00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:32.839 arm chairs, and every so often someone from Tanhall popping 115 00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:34.439 in to beg a copy of a loss by law. 116 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:38.199 On certain nights, the library transformed itself lanton strung from 117 00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:40.560 the spinoll railings. The hush traded for a lowbar's as 118 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:44.040 locals prepared for meetings or seasonal gatherings. One oddity was 119 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:46.879 the so called Festival of Lanterns, which mister Finn described 120 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:48.639 by the Wink as a kind of midsumer senses for 121 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:51.120 the board and the curious. I liked how the place 122 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:54.519 knitted people together hamrsss. Davison knew, for example, which patrons 123 00:05:54.519 --> 00:05:57.040 deserved the extra time with overde books because their husband's 124 00:05:57.079 --> 00:05:59.759 routine died during exam periods, And how will collocate the 125 00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:02.079 town so only copy of turchenev by smell if not 126 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:05.759 by dewy. The daily rhythm of cataloging, shoving, hunting and 127 00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:08.160 chatting felt as reliable as the our hands weeping across 128 00:06:08.199 --> 00:06:10.839 the face of the old taar clock. Still, the peculiar 129 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:12.480 business with the stairs hovered at the edge of my 130 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:14.800 every day thinking. I toyed with it the way a 131 00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:17.839 mathematician might not solve problem one that threatened no exam grades, 132 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:21.319 only quietly insisted on another look. By my third week, 133 00:06:21.399 --> 00:06:23.519 the memory of those fluctuating steps nowed at me with 134 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.639 the gentle persistence of a misplaced equation. I resolved to 135 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:30.079 be rigorous, if only for my own satisfaction. Before my shift, 136 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:31.959 I brought a fresh notebook and stood at the foot 137 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:35.839 of the stacas. I counted slowly, precisely aloud, touching the 138 00:06:35.839 --> 00:06:39.879 banister for balance. One, two, three, year. This time the 139 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:43.160 tally carried me to twenty four before the landing. I blinked, 140 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:46.000 started again, counted up without pausing, and landed again at 141 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.720 twenty four. A cheerful voice piped up from the upper 142 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:52.240 landing wool balancing a precarious tower of return books. You 143 00:06:52.360 --> 00:06:56.480 lose something, miss Lane. No, just verifying a hunch, I 144 00:06:56.519 --> 00:06:59.160 gestured with my note book, how many steps do you 145 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:02.319 suppose these are? He gave the question hardly a moment's thought. 146 00:07:03.079 --> 00:07:06.240 Eighteen used to practice for music recitals, missus Davison's rule, 147 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:11.399 one warm upper step, superstitious. Probably Missus Davison, passing behind us, 148 00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:14.839 laughed without looking up from a clipboard. Eighteen no, no 149 00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:18.319 is twenty. Every one knows that libraries always had twenty steps. 150 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:21.360 My mother said so, her mother too. Her tone broke 151 00:07:21.439 --> 00:07:23.759 no contradiction, as if the matter were surely as fixes 152 00:07:23.800 --> 00:07:26.720 the marvel. Mister Finn, drifting your back, cut a hand 153 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:30.000 to his ear like a stage actor. Nineteen always nineteen, 154 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:32.480 lucky number for this library changed after the fire of 155 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:36.000 fifty four, they say. He nodded, satisfied, as if closing 156 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:38.519 an argument. I stared up at the three of them 157 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:41.759 in turn. They were each so utterly certain, so gently 158 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:44.079 unconcerned by each other's answers, that it might have been 159 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.800 an inside joke if I hadn't known them better. Isn't 160 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:49.560 it odd? I said that every one remembers a different number. 161 00:07:50.079 --> 00:07:52.480 I tried to make my tone teasing, not acute. Story 162 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:56.720 well shruked. Must be maybe some one's been sneaking steps 163 00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.439 in or out after hours, he grinned, but there was 164 00:07:59.480 --> 00:08:02.319 no biteing sarcism. He seemed to dismiss the conversation the 165 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:05.199 way he dismissed all stories about haunted books with secret tunnels. 166 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:09.519 Missus Davison sniffed. People loved to argue about simple things, 167 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:11.879 she said, implying that this was not a mystery, only 168 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:14.839 the world doing what it always did. Don't fuss, alice. 169 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:18.240 Mister finnclapped his cane on the floor, a gentle punctuation. 170 00:08:18.839 --> 00:08:21.000 Every steps of memory. If you add them all up, 171 00:08:21.079 --> 00:08:24.480 you'd get the answer, I imagine, he seemed pleased by the thought. 172 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:28.360 They moved on content. I stirred for a moment longer, 173 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:31.120 staring at the elegant staircase, at the creamy marble, the 174 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:34.679 raal polished by decades of hands. The official blueprints, as 175 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:36.879 I remembered from my cattle logging, had always seemed to 176 00:08:36.919 --> 00:08:38.879 treat step count as an after thought. One plan from 177 00:08:38.919 --> 00:08:41.799 the nineteen twenties included a sketchy outline with unclear rises, 178 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.039 and the archivist who wrote the caption had marked it 179 00:08:44.039 --> 00:08:47.480 only as stair detail. Nineteen steps. Back at my table, 180 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:49.679 I pulled the file and checked again. The faded photograph 181 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:52.000 from a century ago, all top hats and wool coats, 182 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:55.399 showed the staircase crowded with revelers, I traced the steps 183 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:57.399 in the image. Depending on how I judged the shadow, 184 00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:00.519 twenty two seemed plausible, though nothing was distinct. It was 185 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:03.720 as though even the evidence leaned toward uncertainty. I began 186 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:05.840 to feel that formerly idle oddity tied it into a 187 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:09.240 sharp edge of curiosity. Canting steps was not just an 188 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:12.000 exercise in arithmetic. It was a measurement that resisted certainty 189 00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:14.840 where one would expect solidity. I found a town that 190 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:18.159 lived happily with contradiction. The more I thought about it, 191 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:20.759 the less inclined I was to leave it alone. What 192 00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:23.360 would a scientist do you or a mathematician faced with 193 00:09:23.399 --> 00:09:25.480 a variable in the middle of an equation that insisted 194 00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:29.120 on changing value, You'd isolate the variable control for contact test, 195 00:09:29.159 --> 00:09:31.759 again and again until some sense could be made. I 196 00:09:31.799 --> 00:09:35.200 resolved to treat the staircase as a research subject. That night, 197 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:37.200 settling at my kitchen table, I drew a chart in 198 00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:41.200 that about the variable's time of day, direction, moo companion's destructions. 199 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:43.799 I found, if oddly, thrilling, like piquing under the wall 200 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:45.679 paper of a world that is meant to be reliable. 201 00:09:46.159 --> 00:09:48.480 The next morning, I went and even before the library 202 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:51.639 opened letting myself in with the janitor's permission, I brought 203 00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:53.200 my notebook in a digital count to the kind I 204 00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:55.480 used in the class room to tai quiscause without losing 205 00:09:55.480 --> 00:09:58.799 my place. I walked up the staircase. I sharped twenty, 206 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:02.679 walk down the walked up again with eyes closed, hand 207 00:10:02.679 --> 00:10:06.080 tied on the rail. Twenty one each count resisted repetition. 208 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:09.879 Returning after lunch, I walked the staircase with deliberate nogalances, 209 00:10:09.919 --> 00:10:14.519 humming as I went, hoping to distract myself seventeen. Tried again, 210 00:10:14.559 --> 00:10:17.720 with concentrated attention on my breathing twenty four. If I 211 00:10:17.759 --> 00:10:20.679 felt a little foolish, I didn't let myself stop. A 212 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:23.120 librarian's assistant, seeing me at the foot of the stairs 213 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:25.279 with my counter, gave a quizzical tilt of her head. 214 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:30.000 Not a scavenger hunt, is it, miss lane? Mathematical curiosity? 215 00:10:30.039 --> 00:10:32.759 I replied, grinning. Would you humor me encount them as 216 00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:36.399 you go up? She smiled, bemused, and did so, pausing 217 00:10:36.399 --> 00:10:39.320 a few steps from the top. Nineteen and a half. 218 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:41.440 I always trip on this one. She showed me a 219 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:45.200 scuff toe. I juttered her name in count. She shrugged, 220 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:48.120 it off as just one of those things. That afternoon, 221 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:52.080 I began peppering my cataloging with impromptuy interviews. Mister Finn, 222 00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:54.960 of course, stepped to nineteen, then immediately began recalling a 223 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:57.200 story about his older sister tripping on the twelfth step 224 00:10:57.200 --> 00:10:59.399 every day one summer and swearing a note against walking 225 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:02.840 up alone. The college student Will insisted the staircase had 226 00:11:02.840 --> 00:11:05.120 to be eighteen. Anything else would have thrown off my practice, 227 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:08.200 but conceded that he never actually counted with care. A 228 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.799 middle aged patron collecting her son's for garden lunch boks 229 00:11:10.840 --> 00:11:13.759 from the loss and found Guess twenty four, recalling fondly 230 00:11:13.759 --> 00:11:15.960 that it's always half a forty eight hour street address 231 00:11:15.960 --> 00:11:19.480 growing up thirty six. The town's mailman replied, when caught 232 00:11:19.519 --> 00:11:21.360 at the door with parcels in hand, and gave me 233 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:22.759 a look as if i'd asked the age of the 234 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:25.960 church steeple instead. The conviction, the ease of certainty each 235 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.480 response felt like a window into private logic. Sometimes they'd 236 00:11:29.480 --> 00:11:31.559 give an anecdote it's always the fourteenth step where I 237 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:33.720 get nervous if some one's watching, or of the step 238 00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:36.120 with the chip in the marble fifteen, always fifteen, and 239 00:11:36.159 --> 00:11:38.879 not pausing to consider whether the stories match the ordinal count. 240 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:43.559 My research expanded in the archives. I hunted down maintenance locks, 241 00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:45.960 a request you repaired to twenty third steps, loose trade 242 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:49.039 dated nineteen seventy three, A budget for twenty risers, two 243 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:52.879 landings scrolled in a different hand, no year lgible. Reviewing 244 00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:56.080 building plans filed over forty years, I noticed the diagrams 245 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:58.159 and notes rarely agreed. The number of steps seemed to 246 00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:00.919 fluctuate mid page, as if whoever the correction, did so 247 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:04.039 with perfect confidence, una whim. I brought my phone in, 248 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:06.919 took a sequence of photos Wallace Nding, snapping one per step, 249 00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:09.559 then tried to reconstruct the staircount at home, scrolling through 250 00:12:09.559 --> 00:12:13.120 an order. The images were ambiguous, angle shifted unintentionally, and 251 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:16.200 the balustrade sometimes seemed proportionally too long or too short, 252 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:18.960 depending on the run. On the third attempt, I found 253 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:21.679 myself on sure whether I had misremembered the orientation, or 254 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:25.519 if the shadows themselves spent to avoid easy comparison. Upstairs, 255 00:12:25.879 --> 00:12:28.559 in a dusty closet behind the map room, I discovered 256 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:31.320 a stack of library blueprints spanning a century, each marked 257 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:35.000 with annotations in the margins. Some listed the staircases twenty 258 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:38.440 steps with a pencil correction twenty two per survey. Others 259 00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:41.799 bore strike through in replacement as seventeen and nineteen as sixteen, 260 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:44.720 a time of construction. Addition, since it was as though 261 00:12:44.759 --> 00:12:47.799 the records themselves learned to compromise, certainty was only ever 262 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:50.919 written in pencil, rail li inc I started keeping a 263 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:54.600 table of counts, dates, sources my own, those of librarians, patrons, 264 00:12:54.639 --> 00:12:58.440 maintenance logs, blueprints, photos. The list grew a tangle of 265 00:12:58.519 --> 00:13:01.480 numbers with no greed average. If there was a pattern, 266 00:13:01.519 --> 00:13:04.320 it eluded the familiar tools of mathematics as shifting series 267 00:13:04.360 --> 00:13:07.559 with no apparent periodicity. This lack of common confusion, this 268 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:11.159 persistent confident contradiction, became more fascinating than the staircase itself. 269 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:13.879 No one questioned their own memory, nor did any seem 270 00:13:13.879 --> 00:13:18.279 remarkably troubled by disagreement. The tan, it seemed, wore uncertainty lightly. 271 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:21.720 The following week, emboldened by the growing riddle, I delved 272 00:13:21.720 --> 00:13:24.360 into the earliest written records available, burrowing through a red 273 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:29.000 velvet box of original correspondents and founding documents. The Glastonbury's Library, 274 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:32.080 established in eighteen thirty six, boasted a catalog of ledges, 275 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:36.200 painstakingly indexed in Missus Davison's tidy handwriting. I cross referenced 276 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:38.679 the earliest description of the building, the inaugural address at 277 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:40.960 the opening, printed in the local gazette. Wheth the staircase 278 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.559 was declared a proud solely the scent of twenty steps. 279 00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:47.200 Ten years later, an inspection report referenced to nineteen stairs, 280 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:50.120 each worthy of its own tale. The differences didn't seem 281 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:52.840 to bother any one. The century of custodian's surveyors and 282 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:55.799 TOWNSFOK each seemed to select their own number, adjustment the error, 283 00:13:55.879 --> 00:13:59.279 and leave no record of confusion. I traced the corrections 284 00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:01.159 like a thread through the arcouse. A margin of from 285 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:04.879 nineteen thirty six promosessel or its accounting nineteen, not twenty. 286 00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:08.399 Another from nineteen fifty eight. Restoration replaced three lowest steps, 287 00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:12.639 current total twenty one per work order. Even maintenance budgets 288 00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:16.080 fluctuated to reflect whichever count was en vogue. Every time 289 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:18.200 I returned to the staircase, I saw it less as 290 00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:21.799 a fixed architectural element and more as a living object measured, remembered, 291 00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:25.600 and described differently by every participant. The physical stone was 292 00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:28.399 real enough, but the number of experiences felt infinite, braided 293 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:32.559 together in confident recollection objectivity, I realize was not so 294 00:14:32.600 --> 00:14:35.080 easy to pin down, even with something as simple as counting. 295 00:14:35.720 --> 00:14:38.039 I began to wonder was this all a protracted joke, 296 00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:41.399 a secret test handed down through generations, an elaborate local game. 297 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:44.960 The certainty in every one's memory was profound, but incompatible, 298 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:49.559 each person's recollection stable at the sum impossible. One afternoon, 299 00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:51.679 I struck up a conversation with mister Finn as we 300 00:14:51.679 --> 00:14:53.639 produced the illustrated map of the town. Pinned at the 301 00:14:53.679 --> 00:14:57.440 library's entrance. I recounted my findings, laying out the contradiction 302 00:14:57.480 --> 00:15:01.320 and stepped counts and shared anecdotes, leaning close so that 303 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:04.080 only I could hear. Alice, I think you'll find the 304 00:15:04.120 --> 00:15:06.879 libraries always like to keep us guessing. Memory is slippery 305 00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:09.240 than the marble. You know, maybe the steps only show 306 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:12.279 themselves as needed. I pressed on, was it a town prank? 307 00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:15.240 Or had someone altered the steps over time? He shook 308 00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:17.159 his head, giving me a look that fell somewhere between 309 00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:20.960 conspiracy and comfort. You know, I once counted sixteen steps 310 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:23.440 at closing in twenty. The next morning, my brother swears 311 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:25.600 the stairs grew for the Lanterns festival, just to make 312 00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:28.279 the walk more dramatic. Maybe it's not that the stairs change, 313 00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:31.799 but that we do. I nodded, cap between skepticism and delight. 314 00:15:32.480 --> 00:15:35.759 But shouldn't the record, photos, plans, lodgers give us some grounding. 315 00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:39.360 Mister Finn's eyes twinkled. If you can find one record 316 00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:41.320 that everyone agrees with, I'll buy you dinner at the 317 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:44.080 four Corners, and I'll sweep the stairs myself for a week. 318 00:15:44.279 --> 00:15:46.600 Until then leave a little room for the library's mysteries. 319 00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:50.519 It was suddenly obvious, certainly didn't matter here. The mutual 320 00:15:50.519 --> 00:15:52.720 contradictions weren't a threat to the town sense of self. 321 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:55.039 They were the clue, the ritual, the unspoken agreement, the 322 00:15:55.080 --> 00:15:58.679 tradition and personal experience might always diverge. Rather than a 323 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:01.559 simple air of memory or folklore, the mystery began to 324 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:03.600 feel woven into the fabric of both the building and 325 00:16:03.639 --> 00:16:07.120 the people. Each record, each story, each memory, became an 326 00:16:07.159 --> 00:16:09.440 act of measurement, one taken in good faith, yet offering 327 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:11.919 as many truths as there were eyes to see. One 328 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.759 rainy Friday, dodging puddles a long the library walk, I 329 00:16:14.840 --> 00:16:17.879 resolved to expand my search for context. At the monthly 330 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:20.960 meeting of the town's Historical Society, a scattering of retirees, 331 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:24.039 council members, and curious teenagers had gathered in the library's 332 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:27.960 nottipurpose room, folding chairs in haphazard roars. Near the end 333 00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:30.000 of the meeting, when the agenda had dissolved and talked 334 00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:32.759 drifted to traditions, I raised my hand and asked the group, 335 00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:35.919 does anyone recal how many steps the library's main circus has. 336 00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:39.240 The response is ignited in a quick fire eighteen, of course, 337 00:16:39.320 --> 00:16:42.320 came from the town clerk. Nineteen every year since my 338 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:45.000 school days, from a gray haired woman in the back row, 339 00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:47.320 depends on the year. When I was a boy, we 340 00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:49.519 used to count for the Lanterns festival, and I swear 341 00:16:49.559 --> 00:16:52.200 it was twenty one. A ripple of laughter followed, and 342 00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:54.799 a short, sturdy woman with a crowsfoot smile piped up. 343 00:16:55.279 --> 00:16:58.639 I remember that festival, she said, introducing herself as Missus Proctor. 344 00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:01.000 My cause was life. Why not each of us would 345 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:03.240 ascend the steps, counting out loud, then write our number 346 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:05.480 on slips of paper. We'd hand them to the librarian. 347 00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:07.640 They'd always say, good answer, and all right for you. 348 00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:11.519 Hemme never told us which was correct. Others nodded, Some 349 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:14.319 clearly recalled being asked for step counts in secret. Others 350 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:16.240 swore it was more like a contest the bidding who 351 00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:18.799 got it right. Even among the group, the rule slip 352 00:17:18.839 --> 00:17:21.960 from certainty into fond confusion. Back in the archives, I 353 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:25.200 sought evidence of the ritual. A slim folder marked Festival's 354 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:28.599 Miscellaneous yielded a sheaf of yellowing reports. Step counting contest 355 00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:31.519 brings laughter and confusion to five winners, announce, though each 356 00:17:31.519 --> 00:17:34.799 had a distinct answer. Children's drawings from the nineteen fifty 357 00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:37.440 showed to Grandma be stair case resembling a winding caterpillar, 358 00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:40.759 annotated with numerals from fifteen to twenty two, sometimes with 359 00:17:40.839 --> 00:17:43.799 speech bubbles. I saw two extra steps this year. The 360 00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:46.960 festival instructions scrolled on half folded sheets ringe from the 361 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:50.279 poeticasc ND count write your number, your evidence's destiny for 362 00:17:50.279 --> 00:17:52.759 the day to the passaic all numbers honored treats for all. 363 00:17:53.319 --> 00:17:56.200 A century of small town gigglings seemed encoded in the ritual. 364 00:17:56.799 --> 00:18:00.000 A box labeled festival memorabilia included a kaleidoscope of stay 365 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:03.200 paper slips, each recording an individual step count and pencil 366 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:05.559 or creyon, some accompanied by short notes. Tripped at eleven, 367 00:18:05.640 --> 00:18:08.920 counted again, this time thirteen. Always count with your lucky numbered. 368 00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:11.400 It struck me that the act of counting had eclipsed 369 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:14.799 the measure itself. The town had institutionalized contradiction, making each 370 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:18.000 tally inequitable member of the collective record. The joy was 371 00:18:18.039 --> 00:18:21.920 not in agreement, but in participation. My curiosity shifted. The 372 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.079 library's tradition was not about establishing an objective truth, but 373 00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:27.599 in sustaining a kind of democracy of observation, a ritual 374 00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:30.200 in which every camp became valid, integrated into the shared 375 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.119 story of the place. Pouring over a sheaf of yellow 376 00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.960 programs for the Festival of Lanterns, I found little mention 377 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:38.839 of winning or accuracy, but tendless reference to celebration of 378 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:42.759 the community's many voices. Some years the step count was reported, 379 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:46.279 others ignored completely. I realized that attempts to document the 380 00:18:46.359 --> 00:18:49.920 events rendered them even more ambiguous. A nineteen sixty two 381 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:52.599 article in the Glastonbury Weekly News featured a photograph of 382 00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:55.519 five children sitting on different steps, each holding a sign 383 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:58.720 with the different number, all grinning with satisfaction. The caption 384 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:01.720 read winners of all around, as if contradiction were the 385 00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:04.440 intended outcome. I sat in a pool of soft light 386 00:19:04.440 --> 00:19:06.400 at the end of the archives room and allowed myself 387 00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:08.079 for the first time to one the less about the 388 00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:10.759 mechanics than about the meaning of it all. Perhaps the 389 00:19:10.799 --> 00:19:13.799 library's staircase had become a living artifact of the Tuan's philosophy, 390 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:15.799 a monument not to certainty but to the beauty of 391 00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:19.599 ambiguity embrace. Yet the concrete schoolteacher part of me insisted 392 00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:22.839 there must be some explanation, some physical, historical, or perceptual 393 00:19:22.839 --> 00:19:26.119 trick at play. Perhaps each present was primed by expectation 394 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:28.640 as social script performed, and of consciously each time the 395 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:32.559 subject arose. Days later, in another unsorted box, I found 396 00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:35.319 a letter sealed in brittle wax. It was the only 397 00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:38.720 letter I'd seen directly attributed to Zerpembrouke, the reclusive mathematician 398 00:19:38.799 --> 00:19:41.920 architect who designed the library. The inside of the envelope 399 00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:44.359 hearded free metallicis, some kind of tokens, and a folded 400 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:48.519 page delicate with age, despite her writing read to whom 401 00:19:48.599 --> 00:19:51.519