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Speaker 1: Hollo. I welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

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Let's get into it. The storm rattled north. Will it

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be public library? Down to its very bones? Sheets of

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rain lashed the windows, sharp as handfuls of gravel thrown

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from the cherning street outside. The wind knife along the eaves,

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and endless scream over the faded brickwork in the bowels

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of the building, below the endless groaning stacks, in the

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muddy fragrance of thoin soil. I sat hunched in the

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glow of a single desk lamp, deep within the librarian's cage.

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It was the end of my first week on the

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solitary night shift, and to be honest, no amount of

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training or shadowing of daytime staff had prepared me for

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the isolation of those hours. The fluorescent lights overhead stammered

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between fits of buzzing silver a light and trembling silence

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piped creaked in a sleep. My small portable record of

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blinked red work crouched beside the box, I was inventorying

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the little early d stubbornly hopeful in the gloom. Company

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policy was clear. Staff working between midnight and six a m.

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Meslog audio memos for notable anomalies. I half wondered if

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the policy wasn't a joke instiated by the aging supervisors

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who haunted the committee room. The druidary of cataloging was

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broken up only by the occasional oddity. Boxes of in

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complete returns, battered card files, the batter green thermist left

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by my predecessor, the comforting curl of the tea left inside,

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long since gone to rust. A thunderclap shook the room.

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My index finger jerked, smudging the tidy line I just

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made on the ledger locked missweldt sea returns bindfort. I

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finished jotting the remaining note, dusted my hands, and pulled

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the next box closer. As contents ruttling alarmingly inside. The

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air around me tasted of dust and something metallic, like

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the echo left after biting Ereton. I inhaled, searching the

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corners of my mind for something soothing but all the familiar.

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Once home, sunlight laughter semed far away inside the cart,

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and I found the usual two novels on into library alone,

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a government pamphlet with torn pages and a gray far

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marked special reference, pending that label wasn't unusual in the archives,

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pending covered a multitude of bureaucratic sins, but touched between

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two battered books was a battered index, carved soft and

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yellowed at the edges, laminated long ago in cheap plastic

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that had gone cloudy. It was a patron card, the

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kind used for decades before the digital checkout system, all

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handritch and black fountain pen blue ballpoint, even a thin

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scratch of green pencil in the margins, name Leno Frame

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block letters a little crooked but purposeful. Below it the

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book number of forty two s reference. The first entry

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was dated seventeen May nineteen fifty six, then again in

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sixty one sixty seven seventy one, the same steady interval

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of three to five years, like clockwork, but the final

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entry chilled me. Board eight March nineteen seventy four, pending

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return that year shimmered in my mind until I recalled.

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Nineteen seventy four was when I rumor Leonard Frame had

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been found dead after vanishing into the akhouse for three days.

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He'd been a koutika, though the story went that he'd

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rarely spoken to staff or patrons, except to collect over

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due ledgers or shuffle musty bins back into order. The

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notations get the formal returned line, replace simply by slantid

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penning and unfamiliar, maybe trembling script. I held the card

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under my lamp, noting the signatures, some elegant and old fashioned,

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some size, some findy bureaucratic, some blockie in novus, But

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through them all pulls a kind of echo, as if

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mimicking the original hand that had started the documentation ritual.

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I thought, not just record keeping, a habit or a

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compulsion for the same few staff members over decades. My

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own heartbeat seemed to stagger slightly on impulse. Arose clutching

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the cot and scanned the raws of reference shelves. A

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forty two was supposed to reside behind glass in the

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special section, a row of locked cabinets half forgotten, behind

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the genealogy microfilms. I checked the computer inventory. A forty

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two last seen, not in returns nothing more. Thunder rolled

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overhead rough as bowling balls dropped on the roof. The

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cagedin meshrattled on the heels of the thunder Cayman he

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noise faint but distinct. Upstairs, somewhere near the main desk,

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something heavy, scraped or shifted, as though someone was shiving

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furniture out of their way. I found myself holding the

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recorder tightly, the white on the power switch. I spoke

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into it, low and fast. Memmo two eleven a m

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no trace of a forty two patre record for Lenard

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frame shows repeated chickouts, final entry, pending book missing, sore

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intintsifying possible movement upstairs. Conclude lock for now, will follow

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up tomorrow. My words fell brittle. The library seemed to

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draw in its breath and hold it, waiting for what

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might happen next. Our first light, the rain gave up,

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leaving only the hush of wet streets and the shot

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call of blackbirds outside the front doors. I changed out

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of my library sweater dam at the cuffs as always,

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hung my badge on the peg, and tut the batted

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frame card into folder. As I left the night entrance,

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a wave of fatigue swept over me. The candlows deep

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in the edges of your bones when sleep's been fitful,

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and where we were is just under the surface. Daylight

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did little to lift the building's dignity. North Willoughby Public

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Library had been the city's pride when it opened in

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the forties. All marble columns, decorative molding, and high slit

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ceilings that once hosted organ concerts and readings now decades

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of shotful and rough winters carved away illigants, leaving taped

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strip marble where heating colls split, and cheap plywood where

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pipes had boast. Some wings were boarded over, some simply

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blocked by cut stack with yellowing city directories. Still the

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air held possibility of fragile sense that somewhere meaning lingered

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the clock at the main desktate toward eight when I

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checked out, hand scanning my badge while Missus farber head

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archivist reviewed the logs behind the thick glass of her office.

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She was in her late sixties, small, with movements both

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bird like and abrupt. Her isolid over each new page,

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as if waiting for errors to multiply. Behind me, Ethan,

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the security god, patrolled with his usual quiet efficiency. He

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nodded at me a tiny jerking motion, eclipped his walkie

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at the belt, and whispered into the mic interior secure

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all clear. Ethan was neither friendly nor rude, simply blank

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and impassive as the surface of the old reading tables.

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After a long day. As I waited for father to

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sign off my log, Marrable passed through the lobby. She

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was sly, always tucking a stray lock of hair behind

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her ear, and wore cleaners aprindusted with gray from the mop.

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Her smile was uncertain and her eyes quick to dart away. Still,

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she looked up, voice barely above a whisper. Mayuan used

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to work here, you know. She never came back from

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the archhous in seventy nine. Her tongue was like casual

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leave and play, but her fingers fidgeted with the edge

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of her badge. I glanced to her lost track of time,

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I asked, trying to make a joke. She shook her

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head or gazed drop into the floor. No lost, really,

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people talk places. You shouldn't go past the second basement.

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Before I could ask what she meant, Old Frank, the

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night porter, shuffled pass, pushing the mop as if it

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were a shield. He was the oldest staff member by far,

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war knuckles, deep set eyes, a slow hunched walk. Frank

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rarely spoke, but carried about a black notebook that he

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tapped almost unconsciously, and the metal cut You hear the

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pipes down there, he asked, voice thick with sleep. He

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didn't wait for an answer. Every noise is a wrecker,

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every silence too. He drifted away, mop squeaking, the words

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echoing more meaning than sense. Paperwork at the library was

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a daily siege thick yellow charts, some dating back to

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the city's founding, all mounted, map stained and warped, their

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lines never matching the reality of the twisting corridors and

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block stacks. Every week, some room would quietly vanish from

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the key, reappearing days later with new tape and cardboard reinforce.

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On paper, the library was a simple grid. In practice,

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it was amaze, clinging to the age of irrelevance. After

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logging my IROs and prep in the microfiche machine for

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the next researcher, I updated the staff's daily logs. Missus

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Farber reviewed my work with a brief, satisfied glance. Her words, however,

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stopped me cold. Log books are for official gaps only, Tom,

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don't go looking for stories, just fill the holes. The

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warning run in my mind as I moved among the

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stacks that afternoon, peering into cartons of un cataloged donation books,

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dodging brittle spider words, and i'dly test in drawer handles.

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The pipes arebof, hissed, and knocked like a conversation. I

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could almost tune into the air, thick with dust, and

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the odd whiff of cleaning agent blurred the difference between

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now and then. Every so often I would pass the

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rotten dat where a line of city directories listed all

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residents living as of nineteen seventy one. My hand drifted

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to the age of one, thinking of Fram's patron card

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and the rumors the Clanton names in red ink. But

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routine was routine, whether haunted or not. On my break,

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I sat in the staff kitchen, stale doughnuts in a

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greasy box, radio tuned to low jazz, the wooden floor

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warped from decades of leeks, and a logged a daily

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audio memo. Nothing to report, only anomaly. So far are

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mostly clerical, though there's an odd pattern in the basement.

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Cards might look further. I wasn't trying to rebel, but

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I wanted to be thorough, a trait that got me

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the job but also perhaps placed me in the path

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of whatever lived in the library's solitude. Even then, part

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of me relished the challenge amid the monotony. In the

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next days, curiosity nagged at me like an inch. The

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more I thought about the frame wrecker, the more the

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word pending rattled round inside, unsettled and inquiet. After ires

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cataloging over due returns, I wondered if pendum was just

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a lazy way to mark it unresolvable, or signpost for

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something no one wanted to resolve. So when the time came,

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I decided to go hunting, quietly, cautiously, and with more

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method than purpose. During my next night shift, I carried

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to set of fresh indix cards and a pencil with

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the Chutuiso, determined to cross reference the missing of fortitude

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with the card catalog. The paper catalogs free immens with

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drawers heavy as cuffins were supposed to have been replaced

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by the computed years ago. Instead they lingered, filled with

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dusty cards handwritten in spider ink, representing every book matt

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toy and out of fact eversheldt I started with the

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forty two the drawer stock potway out listing special reference,

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restricted access. His card bore the tidy script of a

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staff member called Margaredess, but in the margin several other

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hands had squeezed in updates over time, loan to patron,

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pending return see ledger, and sometimes only initials and j

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k l f s, but it was never clear whether

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the initials represented approval, denial or something else. Oddly, the

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return dates ran in odd intervals, sometimes three years, sometimes five,

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but always marked off by a handful of recurrent names.

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I didn't recognize any of them. I compared the other

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pending items, maps of old railway projects by neighborhood guides,

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even a children's song book from the nineteen forties, and

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found the same pattern. Borrows records pending for decades, always

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the same staff names in the margin. Sometimes the return

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book signature looked so much like the previous entry as

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to seem forged. They struck me that not only did

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these wrecords suggest rituals or habits, but they seemed to

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actively avoid closure. Why would a pending persist regenerations of

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librarians even after borrowers died or moved away. I carried

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a batch of the cards to Marrable, who was wiping

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down reading lamps at the front desk. She glanced at

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the stack, hair escaping her ponytail. I keep seeing these

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same staff names. Did you ever know Margaret s four

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k hel. She pressed her lips together, considering no only stores,

207
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and tolda said there was a head archivist, Margaret always

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in the late watch. Her expression grew distant. My aunt

209
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had a friend who got moved to a room that's

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not on any maps, supposedly had to love books there

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away from others. Said she saw some one hiding behind

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the stacks, but no one else ever saw her again.

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The last sentence hung in the air. What do you

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mean hiding, I asked Marrable shrugged, flicking a piece of

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lint from her apron Aunt always called the Arkaus a

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living thing, She said, their places, it remembers, even if

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no one goes there after that, I never wanted to

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go down by myself. Her final glance suggested the conversation

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was over. I spin my break exploring an unused hallway

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by the old City Council office, pushing past a broken

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book CT and brushing cobbebs from my sleeve. The court

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or angled then narrowed suddenly, and as I raised my flashlight,

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I heard it small, high pitched whispers just beyond the

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sealed metal door. Their meaning eluded me. Half words sauches

225
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of laughter, but the voices stopped abruptly when the overhead

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light flickered. I recorded another memo as I headed back

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to the bright foyet, voice low and uncertain. Notice odd

228
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margins and forged dates and cut carbs, stuff signatures repeat

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even decades apart. Mirrable recalls a lost friend. Hidden brooms

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whispers from the closed corridor. There's a living memory here.

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The library remembers, maybe more than the city above. That night,

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Liebo shallow. My mind repled the top of the index

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cars and the sense of being observed from unseen corners.

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By morning, I woke with a start, fingers cold and

235
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tied around the covers, a faint take in my chest,

236
00:11:39,279 --> 00:11:41,200
as if something in the stacks were still waiting for me.

237
00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:44,879
My suspicion about records deep. In the following afternoon, I

238
00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:47,200
pulled old ledges from a high shelf in the basement cage,

239
00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:50,120
surrounded by the hum of the building's dormant ires. As

240
00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:52,559
I leafed through the thick, red bound volumes, the ones

241
00:11:52,559 --> 00:11:55,000
with cold lattering nearly rubbed away. I saw precisely cut

242
00:11:55,039 --> 00:11:57,840
gaps in the older pages decades to sign out some

243
00:11:57,960 --> 00:11:59,919
returns had been sliced out as if by a razor.

244
00:12:00,639 --> 00:12:03,840
Some one had inserted replacement sheets crafted to mimick the originals,

245
00:12:03,960 --> 00:12:07,240
but the tiniest details betrayed them. Date shifted slightly, Signatures

246
00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:10,559
of Margarettas in one entry, Margaretess in another, both written

247
00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:14,360
with different pens and inconsistent slat hurious. I checked the ink,

248
00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:17,559
some blood violet, others call black. In one spot the

249
00:12:17,639 --> 00:12:19,519
ink was so fresh at its marge. With my thumb

250
00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:22,320
on a hunch, I made Ford coppers and compared them.

251
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:25,000
Swoops in the m a curl in the s inconsistent

252
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:27,720
every few years. Why would someone take the trouble to

253
00:12:27,799 --> 00:12:30,440
forge decades of staff signatures only to have most records

254
00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:34,120
marked pendingt As I worked hold Frank's strolled by, rolling

255
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:37,240
his mop bucket slowly across the tiles. He hesitated when

256
00:12:37,279 --> 00:12:41,159
he noticed the ledgers just dead paper. He rumbled, some

257
00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:44,240
of those records wont to stay lost. I pressed him,

258
00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:48,240
you've seen these gaps before, write. He eyed the razor cuts,

259
00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:50,840
then thumbed open his little black noteok, revealing nothing but

260
00:12:50,960 --> 00:12:54,720
empty lines. Recas limbo of Frank said, with things that

261
00:12:54,759 --> 00:12:57,360
shouldn't found. O' let to rest were all dust in stacks,

262
00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:01,159
some more than others. Why the forgeries? Frank replaced the

263
00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:04,159
note book, as if shrouding a secret. The systems old.

264
00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:06,600
Can't trust what you see, only what the stacks allows.

265
00:13:06,639 --> 00:13:10,000
Sometimes the room shifts, always did. He left wheels of

266
00:13:10,039 --> 00:13:12,919
the bucket rattling, the darkness closing around what he refused

267
00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:16,159
to explain. Frustrated a cold city hall, aiming to check

268
00:13:16,159 --> 00:13:18,879
staff registers and confirm the employment dates of the signatures

269
00:13:18,919 --> 00:13:21,360
had found perhaps Margaret, s, K L and m J

270
00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:24,600
were still alive or at least traceable. My call connected

271
00:13:24,799 --> 00:13:27,679
rang once and then hissed into static for a second.

272
00:13:27,720 --> 00:13:29,759
Impossible as it was. I felt the static pulse the

273
00:13:29,799 --> 00:13:32,320
faintest impression of words forming behind it, as though a

274
00:13:32,399 --> 00:13:34,600
voice was just out of reach before the lion snap dead.

275
00:13:35,159 --> 00:13:36,960
When I asked missus Farber if she'd ever heard of

276
00:13:37,039 --> 00:13:40,039
Margaret est although forbidden catalog, her response was brisk let

277
00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:43,039
sleeping files lie, Tom. Some gaps are intentional. That's why

278
00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:45,960
we keep looks, so no one goes looking for ghost. Yet,

279
00:13:46,039 --> 00:13:48,360
late that evening, before leaving for the night, she left

280
00:13:48,399 --> 00:13:50,600
to note that my staff mail box, written in looping

281
00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:53,120
blue pan the note read final catalog draw thirty nine

282
00:13:53,240 --> 00:13:57,080
Pasky eight thousand, one hundred forty six only for official gaps.

283
00:13:57,639 --> 00:13:59,600
It was paper clip to an old metal key. Dull

284
00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:02,559
Wi Tom. I made a half hearted attempt to ask

285
00:14:02,639 --> 00:14:04,840
Eton a guard about the odd rooms and forbidden shelves.

286
00:14:05,559 --> 00:14:08,480
He only frowned. Basement does odd things to your sense

287
00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:11,360
of time, he said, his voice flat. Don't let it

288
00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:13,600
trap you. Most people go through six eyes down there

289
00:14:13,639 --> 00:14:16,200
and think it was thirty minutes. That night, I fell

290
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:19,320
into dreams of labyrinthine corridors lined with gaping empty drawers.

291
00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:22,840
Something waited at the farthest threshold of flicker, sometimes animals,

292
00:14:22,919 --> 00:14:26,000
sometimes mine shaped. It never crossed toward me, but I

293
00:14:26,039 --> 00:14:28,080
felt the edge of its attention as they staggered away,

294
00:14:28,159 --> 00:14:31,159
heart slamming inside my chest. The following day gave me

295
00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:34,440
little choice. The storm returned, piling on the windows and

296
00:14:34,519 --> 00:14:38,039
rattling the loose glass behind the basement reference counter. Farber's key,

297
00:14:38,080 --> 00:14:40,120
cool and sharpen my pum seemed to draw me downward,

298
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:42,440
past the ordinary chaos of the lower reading rooms into

299
00:14:42,480 --> 00:14:45,480
his own that was quieter, dancer beyond the staff only

300
00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:48,080
doors passed the yellow caution tape and the broken clock

301
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:50,720
that always read twelve for the library's old section began

302
00:14:50,799 --> 00:14:54,399
in earnest footstepsuchered differently down here, muted, as though the

303
00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:57,440
concrete itself absorbed sound, and held it at the far

304
00:14:57,679 --> 00:15:00,120
end against appealing wall painted with a faded miual of

305
00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:02,200
children reading. I found a bank of un touched my

306
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:05,120
coroffiche drawers, most had not been opened in years. Their

307
00:15:05,159 --> 00:15:07,080
handles gave way with a creak that drew out dust

308
00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:10,000
and seemed to me colder air draw a thirty nine

309
00:15:10,039 --> 00:15:12,840
boer taped label of forty two pending official use only.

310
00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:17,159
I slid in Farber's pasky. It turned too smoothly. The

311
00:15:17,279 --> 00:15:20,240
drawer rolled out inside not the extected microffiche cars, but

312
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:22,879
a chaos of torn and yellowed index cars, each bearing

313
00:15:22,919 --> 00:15:25,720
a different library hand and a scattering of faded polaroids.

314
00:15:25,799 --> 00:15:28,879
The color leached out with age. The first polaroid showed

315
00:15:28,879 --> 00:15:31,039
a line of staff arm in arm at a pinnic table,

316
00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:34,360
faces half smiling, paper hats cocked at odd angles. I

317
00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:37,799
recognized Marrable's features in a younger woman, and my heart jolted.

318
00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:41,840
Was this herrent? The photos were indeeded, but several people

319
00:15:41,919 --> 00:15:44,519
were circled in red ink initious groll beside their faces.

320
00:15:45,159 --> 00:15:47,559
Below the photos a crack sign out sheet, yellowed but

321
00:15:47,639 --> 00:15:50,399
oddly crisp. This was what stunned me. The sheet was

322
00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:52,159
dated with to day's date, and below the list of

323
00:15:52,159 --> 00:15:55,639
signatures space for another. There written in the careful, leaping

324
00:15:55,679 --> 00:15:57,360
hand that I'd used on my daily logs. My own

325
00:15:57,440 --> 00:15:59,960
name stared up at me, the same curve of my ear,

326
00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:02,679
unmistakable at the time, entered as twenty one, forty eight.

327
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:06,799
But I hadn't signed anything that night, not yet. A

328
00:16:06,919 --> 00:16:10,120
sound crept through the stacks, slow dragging footsteps, impossibly soft

329
00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:13,279
mivy across the old floor, passed the forbidden shelves. The

330
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:16,480
hairs along my neck quivered and lifted. I glanced toward

331
00:16:16,519 --> 00:16:18,559
the aisle, saw only the shifting shadow of my own

332
00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:21,279
lamp flicking. As the storm sent another shudder through the building.

333
00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:25,360
I rifled once more through the drawer. Between two torn clouds.

334
00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:27,679
A single clean sheet gleamed, its surface bright in the

335
00:16:27,759 --> 00:16:31,039
slick news, a fresh cut. The date at the top tomorrow,

336
00:16:31,759 --> 00:16:34,679
my own name already filled in alongside the phrase special

337
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,600
reference of forty two, penning a bulb above me popped,

338
00:16:37,679 --> 00:16:40,240
shower in the desk and glass dust. The last of

339
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:42,399
the drawers, loose cows, rattled as I set them down,

340
00:16:43,039 --> 00:16:45,679
somewhere in the stacks, just beyond where my light could reach,

341
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,519
where its emerged from the darkness, not spoken, but somehow

342
00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:51,399
ssemble from the nearly silent shivering of the air. But

343
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:53,960
when the catalog is finished, it you'll stay too. My

344
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:57,159
hand clamped tightly around the drawer's handle. The storm battered

345
00:16:57,159 --> 00:16:59,519
at the windows, the building groaned, and I stood caught

346
00:16:59,559 --> 00:17:01,320
between them in the weight of stor as a city

347
00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:04,160
above had chosen to forget. The drawer refused to slide

348
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:06,880
back in. My fingers trembled, slick with sweat as I

349
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:08,960
tried to force it, but it stuck fast, as if

350
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:11,240
the wood had expanded to trap the strange collection, those

351
00:17:11,279 --> 00:17:14,119
ancient index cards, the polaroids, the page bearing my name

352
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,000
in in still glossy with ninas. A chill ran up

353
00:17:17,039 --> 00:17:19,480
my wrist, across my arm, burrowing beneath the skin, already

354
00:17:19,519 --> 00:17:23,200
clummy from the basement's dampness. My breath came shallow. I

355
00:17:23,319 --> 00:17:25,759
flicked the lamp switch off and back on. Nothing the

356
00:17:25,839 --> 00:17:28,799
overhead fluorescence had surrendered, plunging the arkav alcove into a

357
00:17:28,839 --> 00:17:32,039
patchwork of gray and savored light. Only the reflected glimmer

358
00:17:32,079 --> 00:17:34,640
from my flask, light half drained, kept the darkness from

359
00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:37,640
swallowing me upright. I muted that echoed from deeper within

360
00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:41,039
the arch of all stacks. I froze, every muscle strained.

361
00:17:41,759 --> 00:17:44,400
The old tiled floor, usually so muffled under my sneakers,

362
00:17:44,480 --> 00:17:47,319
suddenly felt treacherous. Each step, each sand doubled in that gloom.

363
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:50,039
I could just make out beyond the row of dental cabinets,

364
00:17:50,079 --> 00:17:51,799
the vague outline of the mural, where a patch had

365
00:17:51,839 --> 00:17:55,759
peeled away, exposing concrete beneath. I ducked down, pressing myself

366
00:17:55,799 --> 00:17:57,839
to the cool metal of the catalog drawer, compelling my

367
00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:00,799
lungs to slow. Must be ethan, I whisper, But the

368
00:18:00,839 --> 00:18:04,119
words didn't sound convincing, even to me. My mind scramble

369
00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:06,640
for a plan, for something practical. Should I call out?

370
00:18:07,079 --> 00:18:08,839
But the wild edge to the earlier whisper when the

371
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:12,119
catalog is finished, you'll stay two stop me an irrational

372
00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:15,079
conviction sees much ass What if calling out would confirm

373
00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:18,400
my presence to whatever was out there, I remembered Frank's advice.

374
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:21,559
The motter half lost in his shuffle, reckless limbo were

375
00:18:21,559 --> 00:18:24,119
all dust in the stacks, some more than others. I

376
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:26,279
reached for my recorder, thumbing it on with a snap

377
00:18:26,319 --> 00:18:29,119
that felt loud as a door closing memmo. I mild,

378
00:18:29,279 --> 00:18:33,599
nearly silent, found draw thirty nine contents old staff photos,

379
00:18:33,799 --> 00:18:35,880
index cause sign out log with to days and to

380
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,559
morrow's date. My name appears, though I never signed. Someone

381
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:40,680
or something in stacks fits that's not match in known

382
00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:44,039
staff lights fail, requesting further investigation. The fifth's entry is

383
00:18:44,119 --> 00:18:48,000
heard to confirm I faltered a confirmed date and location,

384
00:18:48,279 --> 00:18:51,640
ending lock. A shadow flickered in the periphery, dissolving when

385
00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:54,440
I focussed, as if my attention did it. That sense

386
00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:57,519
of being observed of heatless eyes waiting for acknowledgment prickled

387
00:18:57,559 --> 00:19:01,039
my scalp from somewhere behind the forbidding shoving. A familiar

388
00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:05,839
cough marrowbles, but it was wrung, raspy dragging, stripped of

389
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:09,920
its previous shye melody. Scraping sound followed something solid scraping

390
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:12,799
across tile. I forced myself to edge around the far

391
00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:15,960
end of the cabinet flasklight in hand. The beamstruck on

392
00:19:16,039 --> 00:19:18,240
pock marksment, a spill of crumpled paper, the hem of

393
00:19:18,279 --> 00:19:20,920
a faded cleaning apron, and there it cursed. At the

394
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:24,960
interjection of two aisles, Marrable herself hugging her knees, face pinched.

395
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:28,400
She didn't see me at first. They don't come closer,

396
00:19:28,559 --> 00:19:31,559
she whispered, gaze locked on something I couldn't see. I

397
00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:34,799
heard them again, I thought, Frank, said, her voice snapped out,

398
00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:37,559
cut by a shudder. They only hunt when someone takes

399
00:19:37,599 --> 00:19:41,119
what's not supposed to move. It's just me, Marrable, I said,

400
00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:43,720
in a voice that wobbled more than night intended. I

401
00:19:43,839 --> 00:19:46,839
found something, these records, and I lifted a handful of

402
00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:49,720
the battered cod as proof, as if evidence could shield us.

403
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,240
She nodded, still not looking at me. My hands pressed

404
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:55,319
so tightly to her knees, I could see bloodless crescents

405
00:19:55,319 --> 00:19:58,920
beneath her nails. The records, they grow every time someone disappears.

406
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:00,720
There is a card. There was one from my aunt

407
00:20:00,799 --> 00:20:04,519
before she went missing. Her lips twitched. I saw it well,

408
00:20:04,519 --> 00:20:06,359
I thought I did that summer, But the next day

409
00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:10,000
no one believed me, not even farber thundercreased the silence

410
00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:13,359
the library's very beams. Wincing, I crouched to our level.

411
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:17,160
The dry paper, smell of lost decades crowded in. Suddenly

412
00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:20,440
an object rolled out from the darkness. I scrambled backward reflexively,

413
00:20:20,599 --> 00:20:23,400
my knees colliding with the open drawer. It was a pencil,

414
00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:25,880
the cheap kind, with the library's initials stamped in foil.

415
00:20:26,599 --> 00:20:28,680
Its raiser was chewed to a step, just like the

416
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:32,119
one I always gnawed on during lown inventory nights. Marrable

417
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:34,880
reached from my arm, her grip urgent. Did you put

418
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,319
that there? She muttered, I searching mine for some denial.

419
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:40,599
I shook my head, lips numb. I just got here

420
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:43,799
the drawer someone's changed, filled it with forgeries, photos, cards.

421
00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:46,319
There is a pattern. Every pending case is never truly closed.

422
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:50,759
Just moved copet rewritten. Her breathing slowed, grew steadier. Then

423
00:20:50,839 --> 00:20:54,720
it's real, she said, quietly, not only me the fluorescent

424
00:20:54,759 --> 00:20:57,359
bulb above us, butter rallying to live for a few seconds.

425
00:20:58,079 --> 00:21:00,640
For those few hot beats, I saw dustmer swirling in

426
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:04,079
a strong but unseen draft beyond Marble's shoulder on the

427
00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:06,920
side wall. The faded mural flickered into visibility, a painted

428
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:09,240
librarian holding opened a book on its spine, A four

429
00:21:09,319 --> 00:21:12,880
V two special reff the detail invisible under normal light,

430
00:21:13,079 --> 00:21:16,240
pulsed in the brief elimination. We scrambled uparate something in

431
00:21:16,279 --> 00:21:18,400
both of us responding to the sudden and spoken need

432
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,599
to move to escape the encroaching feeling that the library

433
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,799
silent watchers were drawing closer. A door banged overhead, heavy

434
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,920
hollow metal on frame. Both of us jerked to a stop,

435
00:21:28,079 --> 00:21:30,319
listening for movement, for the teltale stomp of Ethan with

436
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,440
the snapping shuffle of old Frank. Instead, nothing but the

437
00:21:33,519 --> 00:21:36,039
dull after echo and faint and uneasy, the slow scrape

438
00:21:36,079 --> 00:21:38,599
of something heavy being dragged just out of sight. Marrable

439
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:41,559
tugged at my sleeve. I want to find my aunt's entry,

440
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:44,240
she said, fiercely. This should be a card. She always

441
00:21:44,279 --> 00:21:47,079
marked everything, never lost a single catalog, not once in

442
00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:50,559
twenty years. We have to look, I agreed, But if

443
00:21:50,599 --> 00:21:53,400
things here change, we need to stick together. I led

444
00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:56,079
us back to the main microfiche bay, the open draw

445
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,440
gate as contents askew or Fisher in the library's accumulated order.

446
00:22:00,039 --> 00:22:02,720
I handed Marrable my half dead flashlight and began shuffling

447
00:22:02,759 --> 00:22:06,319
for card's fingers, fumbling in my urgency. There were dozens,

448
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:09,599
maybe hundreds, some crisp, some melded and soft, all with

449
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:12,559
the surreal similarity of repending signature echoed the last, as

450
00:22:12,559 --> 00:22:16,359
if written by some one desperately imitating their predecessor. Finally,

451
00:22:16,519 --> 00:22:21,640
Marrable gasped, Here told e Kashmir nineteen seventeen nine, special

452
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:24,960
ref a forty two pending. The signature at the bottom

453
00:22:25,039 --> 00:22:27,440
was not her answer matched none of the others. In

454
00:22:27,559 --> 00:22:30,799
horrord almost trembling script, the mark was unmistakable Margaret as

455
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,400
but the g twisted backward, incestating, as if the writer

456
00:22:33,519 --> 00:22:35,400
had forgotten how to finish the name. Half Way through,

457
00:22:36,119 --> 00:22:38,920
I exhaled here Aunt checked out forty two, the last

458
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,319
year she was here, just like glennar frame before her.

459
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,519
The interests I leafed through others, tracing the same intervals.

460
00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:48,200
It's always this book, always after ires, always vanished staff

461
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:51,200
or patron. After a final pending entry, Marrable pressed a

462
00:22:51,319 --> 00:22:53,559
card to her heart. I want to see the book.

463
00:22:54,279 --> 00:22:57,440
A surge of rickles resolve ice man certainty. We penned

464
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,240
the flasklight along the shelves, ignoring the printed labor, in

465
00:23:00,279 --> 00:23:03,039
search of anything out of place on the bottom shelf,

466
00:23:03,079 --> 00:23:05,519
wherein dear nothing should have rested since a flood decades ago.

467
00:23:05,599 --> 00:23:08,319
The shape of a book's absence revealed itself, a clean space,

468
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:11,079
slightly wider than the others, with a faint impression in

469
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:15,119
the dust. We're missing it, I whispered, only the cod

470
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,480
left behind, never the volume. Her free hand found mine.

471
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:22,279
The friendliness was sharp, desperate, less, try the next row.

472
00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:24,319
Until they used to say, if you can't find it,

473
00:23:24,559 --> 00:23:26,440
it's not in the stacks, it's somewhay that wants to

474
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,119
be remembered. That phrase wants to be remembered. A needled

475
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,559
at me. What if the book itself moved, or was

476
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:35,640
moved by whatever consciousness the library secreted. I scanned the shelves,

477
00:23:35,759 --> 00:23:38,799
searching for any evidence of recent movement. As we turned,

478
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,319
a low, whistling breeze erupted from a wall vent curling

479
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:45,279
between stacks, rattling the cards in their box. They're just visible.

480
00:23:45,319 --> 00:23:46,960
A slip of paper caught the edge of a shelf.

481
00:23:47,559 --> 00:23:49,960
I snatched it up. The handrton sled different from the others,

482
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,400
marked with the day's date and a message in block letters.

483
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:57,119
Finished the entry nothing more. A sudden static crackled in

484
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,240
my pocket. My recorder left runnings bit out, harsh, half

485
00:24:00,319 --> 00:24:04,759
garbled sound, rising, then suddenly clarifying into voices. I played

486
00:24:04,799 --> 00:24:07,519
it back, at first only the murmur of my own lock,

487
00:24:07,759 --> 00:24:10,720
But as the background hiss rose something else, the overlapping,

488
00:24:10,839 --> 00:24:13,519
distorted tambos of maybe half a dozen people, voices of

489
00:24:13,559 --> 00:24:16,359
a lapping and fighting the tape. I must finish the book,

490
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:19,480
don't forget, never pending. The wind sawed through the arquaz

491
00:24:19,559 --> 00:24:23,759
once more. Marble shivered, pulling her arms around herself. Let's go,

492
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,559
she said, her voice pleading, I don't want to hear

493
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,920
any more. At the main steps, the silence gathered behind us,

494
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:32,440
as if nutting us to leave. Her wrist a backward

495
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:35,359
glance in thought for an instant that her face twisted, hollowed,

496
00:24:35,519 --> 00:24:37,759
barely more than the suggestion of bone and void peered

497
00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:40,839
up from between the racks. When I blinked, it was gone,

498
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,680
only darkness in the stale odor of old glue. In

499
00:24:43,759 --> 00:24:46,279
the staff lounge, we found Frank's seated riding in his

500
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:49,440
battered notebook. The sound of our entrance dartled him, and

501
00:24:49,559 --> 00:24:52,480
for the first time he looked afraid. You two shouldn't

502
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,079
be poking after midnight, he muttered, tucking the notebook away. Frank,

503
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,240
how did you know, I blurted, Did you forge the

504
00:24:59,279 --> 00:25:02,440
antress or the cards? Moving? He shook his head, grave

505
00:25:02,519 --> 00:25:05,799
and deliberate. Not forge, Steward some record to want a

506
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:07,480
life of their own. I'd just give them a place

507
00:25:07,559 --> 00:25:10,039
to rest. Catalog keeps them here until someone's willing to

508
00:25:10,079 --> 00:25:12,400
remember them. That's what the pending means. Can't be ended,

509
00:25:12,519 --> 00:25:16,200
not by rolls, not by shutting a drawer. Marrable's face stiffened.

510
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,000
Tell us what happens if the catalog gets finished, Frank

511
00:25:20,039 --> 00:25:23,599
offered a weary, haunted smile. Never's happened, that last entry

512
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,880
never gets made. Something always interrupts, always has, always will

513
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,640
unless it's somebody desperate enough to see it through. My

514
00:25:29,759 --> 00:25:33,599
mind reeled. Was the library itself refusing closure, luring staff

515
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:36,160
and patrons into a recursive cycle of custody and loss.

516
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:39,240
The metaphor of record Limbo took on a literal wait.

517
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,160
Faber gave me a key. I pressed to drawer thirty nine.

518
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,880
She must know. Frank's eyes flickered. She keeps the tradition.

519
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:48,839
She knows more than she says, part of her job,

520
00:25:49,039 --> 00:25:52,000
part of mine too, I could tell the conversation was over.

521
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,480
Frank rose, dashing his notebook and tubed open the launch door.

522
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,640
In the corridor. Ethan shadow passed. He must have finished

523
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,559
the upstairs rounds. Did either of you try calling out

524
00:26:01,599 --> 00:26:04,480
to night, I asked the group, realizing only then how

525
00:26:04,519 --> 00:26:06,359
strange it was that the building felt so seal, so

526
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:10,759
isolated from the city outside. Ethan overhearing paused at the threshold.

527
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,920
His wide set eyes registered a flicker of uncertainty. Phones

528
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,519
don't always work after ires, he said quietly, And if

529
00:26:17,519 --> 00:26:19,319
they do, it's never to who you think you're calling.

530
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,160
Bestment interferes with things. Sometimes ye get scraps that don't

531
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:25,319
belong to this place are this time. A long, uneasy

532
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:29,599
silence followed. Frank in the shadows murmured, don't stay later

533
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:31,559
than you have to. Tom. The more you look, the

534
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:33,880
more you'll find, and that's not always good. Not when

535
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,720
it's time to close. The suggestion linger to close? What

536
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:42,000
exactly the catalogs ourselves? I pocketed the card with my

537
00:26:42,079 --> 00:26:43,920
own name stamped on to to morrow's date. Vound to

538
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,920
keep it as insurance. Maybe in some way it would

539
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:48,759
serve as witness proof to some one who might one

540
00:26:48,799 --> 00:26:51,599
day stumble onto another unfinished drawer. The rest of the

541
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:53,920
shift crawled by each tick of the wall clock, stretching

542
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,920
seconds in two minutes. I busied myself stapling reports, logging

543
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,240
minor returns, but the echo of what we do. Seeing

544
00:27:00,279 --> 00:27:03,480
the catalog cards, the twisted signatures marrables found entry clung

545
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:06,039
to me like spilt in call my skin. At dawn,

546
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,160
I filed up past the locked reading room. Farborough's office

547
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:11,480
light was on, though she must have stayed past policy.

548
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,599
I hesitated there, unsure whether to speak, to seek answers

549
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,319
or simply to confess. She looked up as I hovered

550
00:27:17,319 --> 00:27:20,319
in her doorway. Her eyes assessed me, calm and shrewd.

551
00:27:21,039 --> 00:27:23,200
Found the drawer, she asked, with a faint lift of

552
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,960
one eyebrow. I nodded. It has my name and others

553
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:31,599
pending for decades, some records, she said, almost gently, mustlinger.

554
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:33,720
The City of Wone acknowledged them, so we do. You

555
00:27:33,759 --> 00:27:35,720
can close the file, but the gap will always show.

556
00:27:35,799 --> 00:27:38,200
That's what keeps the place unsettled and keeped people here.

557
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:42,480
Catalogs unfinished stores half we told, I swallowed. If I

558
00:27:42,559 --> 00:27:45,920
finish it, if someone finally closes it, it matters who

559
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:48,839
finishes and how honest they are. She considered me, lit

560
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,799
pressing into a flat proudate line. Not all stores want

561
00:27:51,839 --> 00:27:54,920
the same ending tom. A second of silence passed between us,

562
00:27:55,079 --> 00:27:58,359
saturated with every unspoken warning. Marble caught up with me

563
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:00,759
in the parking lot the morning, some pressing low against

564
00:28:00,799 --> 00:28:04,119
the clouds, She wore her coat loosely, face pale with exhaustion.

565
00:28:04,759 --> 00:28:07,720
Are you coming in tonight? She asked? Wouldn't miss it,

566
00:28:07,839 --> 00:28:11,799
I replied, trying to sound confident. She glanced away. Meet

567
00:28:11,839 --> 00:28:14,039
me before your shift. If you find more, let me

568
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:18,000
know right away, not afterward. My nerves froned. I spent

569
00:28:18,039 --> 00:28:20,240
the day pace in my apartment, fields of panic thought

570
00:28:20,279 --> 00:28:22,640
cycling through my mind. What if I simply didn't return?

571
00:28:23,319 --> 00:28:25,480
What if I handed over everything to the city archives?

572
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:28,319
Would it matter at all? Or would the gaps simply

573
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,240
redraw themselves as if nothing had ever threatened to be fixed.

574
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:34,839
The curiosity, habit and something like obligation pressed me on

575
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,400
with the evening, as dust bled into night, the wind

576
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,880
time of the library's fas odd rain chined on the roof,

577
00:28:40,039 --> 00:28:42,480
and the sense of anticipation, the electric oppressive kind that

578
00:28:42,519 --> 00:28:45,119
houses itself in thunderheads filled the lobby as I clocked in.

579
00:28:45,799 --> 00:28:47,559
No one else lingered near the front desk. As I

580
00:28:47,599 --> 00:28:51,160
passed through. Ethan was seated inside the security booth, gaze

581
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:53,759
in the dim screens, where grainy camoa feeds cycled endlessly.

582
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:58,240
Old Frank drifted by, already shooking on his coat. Not tonight, kid,

583
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,319
Sometimes you have to let the shell saddle. Even missus

584
00:29:01,359 --> 00:29:04,079
Barbara had vacated the upper floors, her office window dark.

585
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,759
Only Marrable waited, notebook in hand, nervous as a bird

586
00:29:07,799 --> 00:29:11,160
of the feeder. We exchanged a wordless look, each understanding

587
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,519
more than could be said aloud. There is a part

588
00:29:13,559 --> 00:29:16,359
of the building the plans don't show, she whispered, passing clothes,

589
00:29:17,039 --> 00:29:19,319
a room nobody supposed to find. But the old map

590
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,000
in the reference alcovefu of volat against the foundation shot.

591
00:29:22,119 --> 00:29:25,440
There's a gap right where the forbidden alcove lies. My

592
00:29:25,559 --> 00:29:29,400
heart stumbled, picking up speed. Let's look, I said, unreasonable

593
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,039
resolve finding me if we know what we're up against.

594
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:36,160
Maybe I let the sentence trail off uncertain, Maybe we'd

595
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,319
find clover, Maybe just more questions. Together, we navigated the

596
00:29:40,359 --> 00:29:43,480
main stacks, slipped past the staff one barrier, and descended

597
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:45,519
a narrow spiral say that felt older than the rest

598
00:29:45,559 --> 00:29:48,599
of the building. At the lowest landing, the light grew eager,

599
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:50,319
just the faint flow of air and the echo far

600
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,880
away of storm water shitting and pipes. At the corridor's end,

601
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:57,200
a warp door blocked by an institutional bookshelf. The shelves

602
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:01,160
bulged with cast off encyclopedias, spines, watch and flake. Shoulder

603
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,640
by shoulder. We shifted them aside, breezing our feet on

604
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,720
the cracklinoleum. Behind the shelf, a wood paneled door with

605
00:30:06,799 --> 00:30:09,480
a faded insignia the old city seal, but also distaff

606
00:30:09,519 --> 00:30:11,799
twined with an open book. I'll line through the middle,

607
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,240
almost invisible unless I flashly caught it exactly right. I

608
00:30:15,359 --> 00:30:17,640
touched the handle. It came away, sticky, marked with the

609
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,440
reddest ding. I hook was only rusted. The door didn't

610
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:22,440
budge at first, so marrable and now leaned into it

611
00:30:22,519 --> 00:30:25,599
together until suddenly, fingers bruising, breath held it, grudged open,

612
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:30,559
stale coffin swede air poured out. The darkness inside felt thick, laid.

613
00:30:30,599 --> 00:30:32,559
Our flash lights pulled weekly on our rooms, rich and

614
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,839
far wider than the walls outside should permit. Shells lined

615
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,640
the far wall and sordered no dew numbers were electronic tags,

616
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,279
holding a host of art facts, battered purses, a watch

617
00:30:41,319 --> 00:30:43,960
and grave decay, fragments of children's art, a stack of

618
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,880
postcards written in crabscript, and opened letters addressed to pigeons

619
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,079
and staff long vanished. There On a heavy wooden desk

620
00:30:50,119 --> 00:30:52,000
at the center of the room sat a single book

621
00:30:52,039 --> 00:30:53,799
with a spy nearly cracked in a half tidl block

622
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:57,960
letter and faded gold special reference of forty two Marrable

623
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,880
reached from a hand. Her grip was electric. My own

624
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:04,240
hand hovered over the book, not quite daring to touch

625
00:31:04,279 --> 00:31:06,480
the mystery at the center of too many vanished lives.

626
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:09,880
The library outside grown as the storm found its dry

627
00:31:10,599 --> 00:31:13,200
Within the forbidden room, we could almost hear a convergence

628
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,880
of stories, over lapping voices, footsteps never resolved, the longing

629
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,960
within every pending card for an ending for remembrance, offered

630
00:31:20,079 --> 00:31:21,680
just one more night to linger in the memory of

631
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,960
this place. We stepped toward the desk, breath held, hearts

632
00:31:25,039 --> 00:31:27,279
knocking against the silence, the bitter promise of the storm

633
00:31:27,359 --> 00:31:29,480
swelling the summer, known and finished thing waiting in the

634
00:31:29,559 --> 00:31:32,279
turning of the final page. The desk in the forbidden

635
00:31:32,359 --> 00:31:35,359
room was the kind handed down through generations, monolithic, battered

636
00:31:35,519 --> 00:31:38,119
with shallow grooves tracing out the absent names of all coworkers.

637
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,519
Its surface bore the marks of use and dismissal, inkstains

638
00:31:41,519 --> 00:31:44,079
scabbed over decades. An old library stamp with the metal

639
00:31:44,119 --> 00:31:46,279
prongs warped and a single green blott a pad. The

640
00:31:46,359 --> 00:31:49,240
corners curled and yellowed. The battered book at the center

641
00:31:49,279 --> 00:31:51,440
seemed to resist both light and shadow, spy and split,

642
00:31:51,519 --> 00:31:53,880
and covers fraying. The faded gold of Special Reference of

643
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,920
forty two, almost ef faced by time. Amersa's touching my

644
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:59,160
breath felt shallow, every inhale, thick with the scent of

645
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,720
muston dust, powdered minerals, as if we stepped down, not

646
00:32:01,759 --> 00:32:03,400
a few feet, but through a threshold that the rest

647
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:06,319
of the library had forgotten how to acknowledge I could

648
00:32:06,359 --> 00:32:08,680
hear Marrable's breeding quick puffs beside me, and the low

649
00:32:08,759 --> 00:32:11,039
hiss of the overhead vent. Yet all those sounds felt distant,

650
00:32:11,519 --> 00:32:13,960
maufful is, if insulated by unscene layers between us and

651
00:32:14,039 --> 00:32:17,400
the storm outside. Neither of us spoke at first. The

652
00:32:17,519 --> 00:32:20,039
room seemed unwilling to permit noise. Even the shuffle of

653
00:32:20,039 --> 00:32:22,920
my boots against the linnoleau registered faint, like a recollection

654
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,519
of a noise more than the thing itself. I lowered

655
00:32:25,599 --> 00:32:28,079
my hand to the badder cover. The surface was cool,

656
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,160
not just the chill of a law neglected library, but

657
00:32:30,279 --> 00:32:32,759
the strange, biting cold that warned me I was trespassing

658
00:32:32,799 --> 00:32:36,119
on something not intended to be physically resolved. Marrable watch

659
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,799
my hesitation, eyes wide. Wait before you open it, she murmured,

660
00:32:39,799 --> 00:32:42,519
her hands stopping just short of mine. Let be careful before,

661
00:32:42,559 --> 00:32:44,880
Frank said, is right? Closure isn't always what it seems.

662
00:32:45,519 --> 00:32:48,319
I nodded, forcing myself to steady my pulse, and lifted

663
00:32:48,359 --> 00:32:51,599
the cover. The first pages crinkled, brittle, but still amcot.

664
00:32:52,279 --> 00:32:54,680
The book was handriton, each new entry of fresh variation,

665
00:32:54,799 --> 00:32:57,640
some list of names that he had district neat column's day, patron,

666
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:01,559
staff initial purpose, Others ran umbled into margins, covered over

667
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,759
Razio's corrections, inclosures, pisted in with cellophane so old it

668
00:33:04,839 --> 00:33:08,079
had pebbled, and withdrawn from the paper. Each cycle repeated

669
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,240
a forty two, signed out, usually by a staffer Margaret

670
00:33:11,319 --> 00:33:14,880
asked sometimes or m J occasionally a patron. Next a

671
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,319
string of checking dates that a longer stretch of pending

672
00:33:17,559 --> 00:33:20,279
enters allowed to linger in these formation. Finally a gap there,

673
00:33:20,359 --> 00:33:23,359
a return in a different hand. Some entranes coincided with

674
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:25,759
known events a major fire in nineteen sixty eight, the

675
00:33:25,839 --> 00:33:28,720
cities blackout in seventy five, the basement flood in eighty six,

676
00:33:29,519 --> 00:33:32,119
and always adjacent to the dates, a signature that echoed

677
00:33:32,119 --> 00:33:35,920
the staff members, sometimes perfect, sometimes subtly off. I flipped

678
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,039
toward the back, searching for the most recent entest. My

679
00:33:39,119 --> 00:33:41,160
own heart pounded as I saw a black page, then

680
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,039
tuck there the same sheet I had found in the

681
00:33:43,119 --> 00:33:45,359
drawer of my name tom to day's date time left blank.

682
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,200
Thunder rolled through the pipes above, a slow shifting of

683
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,279
pressure that pressed on my ears and forced a shudder

684
00:33:50,319 --> 00:33:53,720
along my lens. Marble drew closer, leaning into peer. At

685
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:56,839
the last few entries, she sucked in a small, short breath.

686
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,920
There's my aunt, she whispered, toldy Gasbire October nineteen seventy nine.

687
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,319
A forty two wrath section status pending, then nothing, no

688
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:07,680
return date, just a gap until this page for a you.

689
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,559
She reached for the book, then withdrew her hand, as

690
00:34:10,599 --> 00:34:13,280
if the air itself had resisted her. The whisper of

691
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,559
movement from the stacks behind us made us both stiffen.

692
00:34:16,079 --> 00:34:18,599
Yet the room, for all its press identsity, seemed heston

693
00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:20,679
to swallow us completely, as though it waited for a

694
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,480
single or a final gesture before acting. I turned the

695
00:34:23,559 --> 00:34:26,119
recorder in my pocket on, letting its faint read led

696
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:27,960
throw a dot of color into the two still air.

697
00:34:28,679 --> 00:34:31,639
This is tom Wick, I spoke softly, but clearly, cataloging

698
00:34:31,679 --> 00:34:34,000
in the sealed archived room reference item of forty two

699
00:34:34,039 --> 00:34:36,719
pound last entry pending dated from over four decade ago,

700
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,239
physical object present, patron reco's pattern of repeated pended status

701
00:34:40,559 --> 00:34:43,519
never returned intervals of three to five years between borrowings.

702
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:47,320
My voice sounded small, compressed by the room's hush. I

703
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:51,400
forced myself onward further investigation needed to determine outcome of

704
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,199
prior staff and patrons listed as last borrows. As I finished,

705
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,280
Marrable reached for her notebook, jotting down her aunt's entry

706
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,119
by hand. Her pencil stuttered as she tried copying the

707
00:35:01,159 --> 00:35:05,920
signature style. Do you hear that? She murmured, like pages turning.

708
00:35:06,599 --> 00:35:10,079
I strained my ears from deeper within, maybe budding the

709
00:35:10,079 --> 00:35:12,199
forbidden room's far wall. They did seem to be the

710
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,559
faintest paper shuffle, like anxious hands leaping through files. I

711
00:35:15,679 --> 00:35:18,199
flashed my light along the shells clustered against the far end.

712
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,000
No sign of movement yet the mild draft, suggestive of

713
00:35:22,039 --> 00:35:23,960
a whole way open to blackness just beyond our reach,

714
00:35:24,119 --> 00:35:27,719
carried the sound. Suddenly, the doornill behind us rattled, then stilled.

715
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:30,800
I stiffened, searching the room for anything we could use

716
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:34,079
to block the entrance. Marrable's eyes flashed wide and panic,

717
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,440
But before either of us moved, a voice came from

718
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,400
the other side. Don't alarm yourself, I'm coming in. It

719
00:35:39,519 --> 00:35:43,719
was Missess Farber. Unmistakably, her words were brisk, hollowed by fatigue,

720
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,039
lacking the warmth or sharp as I had come to expect.

721
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:49,639
The door clicked open. She stepped inside, shutting it with

722
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:53,199
careful determination. Under the fluorescent wash of her office. By day,

723
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:55,320
her hair was a practical career, her gaze sharp as

724
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,480
dental tools. Here in the dusty half light, her face

725
00:35:58,519 --> 00:36:01,119
looked into the streaks of exhaustion covering her features, as

726
00:36:01,159 --> 00:36:03,159
though she was herself a figure wavering at the edge

727
00:36:03,159 --> 00:36:06,320
of the catalog's forgotten pages. He've both gone further than

728
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:10,320
any staff in years, she said, no preamble, no snapping orders.

729
00:36:11,039 --> 00:36:12,880
It was only a matter of time. And I suppose

730
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,639
he found the drawer. We both nodded, neither able to

731
00:36:15,639 --> 00:36:19,079
summon words immediately. She regarded us with the brutal patience.

732
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,360
Ye should understand this room, this catalog. They are not

733
00:36:22,559 --> 00:36:25,920
just evidence of mistakes. What's kept pending isn't simple record keeping.

734
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,360
The library is a kind of memory. So does the city.

735
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:30,719
For that matter, The things people wish of race this door.

736
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:32,800
As the city prefers left and resolved to someone must

737
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,360
bear witness, or those stores come back hungry for closure.

738
00:36:36,039 --> 00:36:39,280
Marrable's voice, dry as chalk, cut through the haze. My

739
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:41,800
aunt never came home. Her entry was left open. Does

740
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,559
that mean Farber showed us dipped. Not everything can be

741
00:36:45,639 --> 00:36:48,719
returned marrable. Sometimes a pattern must be completed, a final entry,

742
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:52,000
an official stamp, before anything can let go. I stepped forward,

743
00:36:52,039 --> 00:36:54,280
holding out the book. But if we fill in the

744
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:56,519
last entry, will the others be free? Or will we

745
00:36:56,599 --> 00:37:01,159
be trapped? Farber didn't move the CATALOG'SSS twofold. It binds

746
00:37:01,199 --> 00:37:04,000
stores here. Yes, keeps the city from suffering. They lost directly,

747
00:37:04,079 --> 00:37:06,880
But it also means those souls, those memories, can't rest

748
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,800
until officially recorded. The ambiguity makes them linger. She stepped closer,

749
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,159
glancing at the index card, burying my name at the

750
00:37:13,199 --> 00:37:16,960
catalog's empty next line. Every time someone disappears, every time

751
00:37:17,039 --> 00:37:19,400
truth is delayed, the catalog grows. Staff tried to keep

752
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:21,639
gaps hidden so the public never has to faced the truth.

753
00:37:21,679 --> 00:37:23,880
But if the catalog is ever completed, the room might

754
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,320
finally empty, perhaps at a cost none of us can predict.

755
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,039
A shudder passed through the library's structure. The weak white

756
00:37:30,079 --> 00:37:34,079
overhead tremble then stadded. I felt for a single knifing instant,

757
00:37:34,159 --> 00:37:36,159
as if the shadows pulled and the forbidden shoving were

758
00:37:36,159 --> 00:37:38,239
poised to spill over and surge into every corridor. If

759
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,440
I so much is blinked. Then from within those shadows

760
00:37:41,519 --> 00:37:44,880
a new figure emerged. Marble drew back, half flying to

761
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,960
her mouth. Her voice fractured, A thread of recognition caught

762
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,880
inside and it The shape resolved with each hessidence step,

763
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:55,800
her aunt's face unchanged by decades older only by fear ice,

764
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:59,480
hollow cheeks drawn but mystically belonging to Marrable's remembered stores.

765
00:38:00,199 --> 00:38:02,400
Her hand reached out, pausing mid air, as if halted

766
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:06,000
at the edge between two realities. Marrable stumbled forward, voice

767
00:38:06,039 --> 00:38:09,480
breaking you you're here or you trap? Her aunt had bowed,

768
00:38:09,559 --> 00:38:12,639
The movement, uncanny in its slowness. She pointed not at

769
00:38:12,679 --> 00:38:15,760
Marrable but at the book, then slowly at the pencil,

770
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,079
marrable clutch, and the blank line in the catalog where

771
00:38:18,119 --> 00:38:20,840
a final entry had never been made. A rising wind

772
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,440
press at the windows. Loose paper skittered along the floor

773
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,719
toward the desk, as of summoned by intention. The temperature dropped,

774
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,320
the cold intensifying until it dried my eyes and drew tears.

775
00:38:30,079 --> 00:38:32,599
I looked at Farber, What happens if I write the

776
00:38:32,679 --> 00:38:36,639
truth above? Frame about Marrable's aunt about myself. Farber's words

777
00:38:36,679 --> 00:38:39,760
came heavily. Then you end the pattern. He forced an answer,

778
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:41,400
but he closed the books on both the gun and

779
00:38:41,480 --> 00:38:43,880
the remaining You allow memory to become history. Some part

780
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,320
of the city's forgetting becomes permanent, and some part of

781
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:48,280
yourself is claimed by what you admit to the ricker.

782
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,920
Marrable shook her head, voice trembling but defiant. I have

783
00:38:52,039 --> 00:38:53,800
to know what happened to Tilda, or I'll be pending

784
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:55,480
my whole life. I can't let this eat at me

785
00:38:55,519 --> 00:38:58,360
forever and certain I glanced down at the catalog of

786
00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:01,079
the battered half mythic book. All its pages waited with

787
00:39:01,119 --> 00:39:03,840
a strange density of and possed grief and bureaucratic obsession.

788
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,559
I reached for the pencil, My hand hovered. The air

789
00:39:07,599 --> 00:39:10,320
in the room changed. It was as if time buckled,

790
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:13,400
Every motion slowed, the yellowed lamp light blurring into Ollie Halo's.

791
00:39:14,039 --> 00:39:16,119
For the briefest of moments, I felt as if the

792
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,519
entire building was swaying, as if gravity was of wind

793
00:39:18,679 --> 00:39:21,440
sided by some one outside. A drop of cold rolled

794
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,639
down the back of my neck. The specter that had

795
00:39:23,639 --> 00:39:26,159
been till depressed nearer, her face contorted with hope and

796
00:39:26,199 --> 00:39:31,360
fear and exhaustion. Almost smiling, she nodded once meaningfully. Another voice,

797
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,760
a man's, whispered from nowhere and everywhere at once. It

798
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,840
sounded nothing like the earlier. Wass's accent was odd, wavering

799
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,760
through the vowels. He finished the story. But the person

800
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,239
finishing it is always changed, it murmured. Some stay forever

801
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,199
on the page, some slip away or pay something. I

802
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:49,760
stead of my breeding and began to write. I tried

803
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,280
to keep my hand from shaking as I filled in

804
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:55,079
the catalog's final gap. Return recorded forty two Special reference

805
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:00,400
all prie pending now closed. Staff witnessed Tom Wick Patron,

806
00:40:00,519 --> 00:40:06,039
Leonard Frame Patron Tilda E. Casmir, status complete. Beside me,

807
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:08,400
Marrable clutched the edge of the desk, her body wrapped

808
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,480
by silence sobs. As my pencil traced the last letter.

809
00:40:11,559 --> 00:40:13,440
The lights above us brightened in a sudden flare, and

810
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,679
then dimmed, flickering but steady. The silence settled, thick but

811
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:20,360
no longer suffocating, till the step backward, her form fading,

812
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,119
not dissolving, but losing the frantic energy that had mpered

813
00:40:23,159 --> 00:40:25,719
her Here, her lips moved. I thought I heard a

814
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,639
whisper of thank you, and then she was gone. After

815
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:30,719
a second, even the cold she brought with her began

816
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:34,159
to subside. The forbidden room breathed easier, as if relieved

817
00:40:34,199 --> 00:40:37,679
of expectation. Farber's eyed water, her cheeks shining with something

818
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:41,239
more vulnerable than exhaustion. It's over for them, then, she murmured,

819
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,280
so softly I had to lean forward to catch it.

820
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:46,920
We're left with the remainder. Something in near and plugged

821
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,920
a feeling I'd never even noticed until it vanished. The

822
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,599
back of my neck grew warm. I glanced at the book,

823
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:54,840
every appending note for forty two, at a new map

824
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,320
beside it, my handwriting the same meat slant, and the

825
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:01,159
words closed and witnessed. I staggered back, letting the pencil

826
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,199
drop to the blotterer, the lingering dread, the prickling fear

827
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,440
that had accompanied every approach to this mystery. It ebbed

828
00:41:07,119 --> 00:41:10,199
only sannus immense, and plane remained mingled with the numb

829
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:13,320
as that follows a true conclusion. Marrable, squeeze my hand,

830
00:41:14,039 --> 00:41:16,880
thank you, thank you. Her voice was barely a whisper,

831
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:19,760
but the gratitude in it was full and bottomless. We

832
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:22,000
turned as one ready to retreat from the forbidden room.

833
00:41:22,559 --> 00:41:25,280
Fob was stayed behind, running her hand over the batted cover,

834
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,199
as if saying farewell to a long time adversary or companion.

835
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,320
Some rooms forget on purpose, she told us, by way

836
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:33,719
of benediction. But it's better to carry a true ending

837
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,280
than a thousand pendings in your heart. The whole way

838
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:39,159
outside had changed. The edge of dread that had marked

839
00:41:39,199 --> 00:41:41,480
our entrance was diminished. Even the feeble light seemed to

840
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:45,199
flicker with less menace, more fatigue. Marrabel walked ahead, guiding

841
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,079
me through the winding corridors to where the night porter

842
00:41:47,159 --> 00:41:50,760
or stairways ended. We didn't speak. The silence was no

843
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,840
longer crushing, It was just human and deep. When we

844
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,159
emerged on to the ground floor, the air was cooler,

845
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:59,519
almost fresh. The boars and clutter that blocked old wings

846
00:41:59,519 --> 00:42:01,719
seemed less to barricade now and more remanent to breed

847
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:05,480
obstacles not warnings. We passed the reading room, its glass

848
00:42:05,519 --> 00:42:07,920
doors shut and secure, and slipped into the staff lounge.

849
00:42:08,639 --> 00:42:10,920
There old Frank was waiting, perched on the edge of

850
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,679
a battered office chair. He looked up, his face more

851
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:16,679
relief than I'd ever seen. It's done, so, he asked.

852
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,000
I nodded, feeling fatigue onn spable through my body, every nerve,

853
00:42:20,039 --> 00:42:23,320
registering the exhaustion. I defer for days. Frank smiled, a

854
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:27,079
pale echo of early Grimace. Good. Some things want closure,

855
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,239
others just want to fade. Glad it wasn't me who

856
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:32,400
had to do it. Marrable slumped at the table, eyes closed,

857
00:42:33,119 --> 00:42:36,639
died you. I ventured, searching for the right question. Did

858
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,400
you ever try to finish it yourself? Frank patted his

859
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,480
note book. I was a coward some nights I marked

860
00:42:42,519 --> 00:42:44,639
interest as lost and transfer and hoped the problem would

861
00:42:44,679 --> 00:42:47,159
solve itself. But the stor is never stopped. Lost, staff

862
00:42:47,199 --> 00:42:50,000
always pending, always cycling back. The objects left behind grow

863
00:42:50,039 --> 00:42:52,960
heavier each year. He crossed the kitchenette, poured himself a

864
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,679
cup of stale coffee. They'll review the records now. It

865
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,320
box up That room made he even lock the access stair.

866
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:00,679
But truth is, the library always finds our way to

867
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:04,599
remember what's important to someone. Somewhere. We sat in weary camaraderie.

868
00:43:04,639 --> 00:43:07,280
The burdens we'd lifted, exacting their toll, and yet strangely

869
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:09,559
I fell cleaner than at any time since it stepped

870
00:43:09,599 --> 00:43:13,320
into North will Lubby's dark embrace. By morning, Marrable hugged

871
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,880
me quickly and took her leave. I'm going home to

872
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,159
let the store settle, she said, for steady, but red

873
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:22,039
ran by grief. Thank you for letting me know, She esitated,

874
00:43:22,199 --> 00:43:24,360
and then added, if you need to talk about it, honestly,

875
00:43:24,519 --> 00:43:27,480
really talk about it, call me. Frank two packed up

876
00:43:27,519 --> 00:43:30,280
his few personal items. Time for this old fool to

877
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:32,480
move on. Someone new will take my place, But with

878
00:43:32,599 --> 00:43:34,880
a little luck, the next gap won't be quite so heavy,

879
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,239
he mused. I returned to my regular shift the following week.

880
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,239
The change was subtle but unmistakable. Some blocked rooms had

881
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,159
been re purpose small maintenance notices posted on doors that

882
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,920
previously bore only faded warnings. The microfeast draws seemed to

883
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,519
have reorganized, rofiled the nothing over it, but a ninas

884
00:43:51,559 --> 00:43:54,719
that was unfamiliar nearest staff came and went ignorant of

885
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:58,840
the undercurrents that still swirled in the building's foundations. The administrators,

886
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:01,159
when presented with my comple leaded locks in the battered

887
00:44:01,199 --> 00:44:04,280
catalog acknowledged the materials with all the bureaucratic remove of

888
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:08,320
people handling any routine paperwork. Many old buildings have their secrets,

889
00:44:08,599 --> 00:44:11,400
mister Wick, thank you for your their cataloging. They wrote,

890
00:44:11,559 --> 00:44:14,679
the tone curiously blanned in a wash of minor reforms

891
00:44:14,679 --> 00:44:18,960
and shuffled job assignments. Missus Farbour herself quietly faded one morning,

892
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,800
words bread that she had retired overnight. Her death swept clean,

893
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:23,719
but for a single line slip of paper in her

894
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,960
looping hand, she'd written, not all can be remembered. There

895
00:44:27,039 --> 00:44:30,559
was no forwarding address, no ceremony. She was simply gone.

896
00:44:31,199 --> 00:44:33,199
The main stacks, though brighter and free from dread, for

897
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:36,199
now felt immense. In a little enter, I settled into

898
00:44:36,199 --> 00:44:39,000
a new rhythm, submitting locks, dutifully entering the occasional inquiry

899
00:44:39,039 --> 00:44:40,880
about a missing card or an od drawer that refused

900
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,920
to close. But I kept one thing private, a duplicate

901
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,920
of the audio recording from the forbidden room. Late at night,

902
00:44:47,079 --> 00:44:49,199
I'd replay it, listening to the voices of those lost,

903
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:51,840
and then briefly return the truth had chosen to cement

904
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:55,320
in the library's memory. One evening, months after a city

905
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:59,679
inspector arrived to inventory archevil abilities for potential renovations. He

906
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:04,559
was polite, efficient and entirely incurious. Together we flipped through forms,

907
00:45:04,679 --> 00:45:07,239
never touching the real heart of what had happened. I

908
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,800
watched him walk out clipboard under one arm, never knowing

909
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,280
the names or stores laid to rest in secret. The

910
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,320
final weight of what we'd witness belonged to no one

911
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:17,000
but us, and the room that could finally breed. Momentarily

912
00:45:17,079 --> 00:45:20,440
free of unfinished stores, the season turned spring, tipping into

913
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:24,119
early summer. My own routine since solidified, reviewing new returns,

914
00:45:24,159 --> 00:45:27,360
training the occasional replacement, sipping throin coffee in half occupied

915
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:31,039
staff meetings. There were moments I sense absurdly that some old,

916
00:45:31,079 --> 00:45:33,880
forgotten intelligence still slept in the deepest corners. But the

917
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:36,559
malice was gone, any uneas belonged only to memory. Now

918
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:40,440
time went by, weeks, perhaps months. The library spent on

919
00:45:40,679 --> 00:45:43,199
gathering the humdrum, the ordinary, the hopeful end, the aim us.

920
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,559
No new store seemed to press, no shadow of gaps

921
00:45:46,599 --> 00:45:49,800
threatened to open in the catalogs. I believed, truly that

922
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,039
the cycle might have been broken, if only for this generation.

923
00:45:52,159 --> 00:45:55,360
By those entries, those final trembling lines. It was late

924
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:57,920
approaching closing when I wandered back to the main staff

925
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:01,239
cage for a final review, and unheard, I moved through

926
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:03,280
the new order until the faint screech of an uncreased

927
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,320
drawer caught my ear. Drawer thirty nine, its old tape

928
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:10,360
peeled away. Furious, I slid it open inside. The contents

929
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:14,079
had been reorganized. No more polaroids, no spattered Indick's cards,

930
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,880
only a single pristine card, its edges crisp and new,

931
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:21,320
almost radiant in the low lamp light. My hands went down.

932
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,159
I drew out the cart and turned it over. The

933
00:46:24,199 --> 00:46:26,880
handwriting was unmistakable, my own, every cowl of the be

934
00:46:27,079 --> 00:46:29,559
the taut tension of the caden wick. It was dated

935
00:46:29,599 --> 00:46:32,039
to not with to day, but with tomorrow's date. The

936
00:46:32,119 --> 00:46:36,079
field marked book borrowed simply re still missing status pening.

937
00:46:36,679 --> 00:46:39,199
I stared at it, forehad prickling with sweat despite the

938
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,039
coaless of the air conditioning. I turned the card this

939
00:46:42,159 --> 00:46:44,559
way and that, seeking smudged inkor the ghosts of another hand,

940
00:46:44,679 --> 00:46:48,360
But no, it was perfect, precise. Mine footsteps sounded faintly

941
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:50,599
from a hole as low unhurried, tread, as though some

942
00:46:50,679 --> 00:46:52,960
one was walking the last circus before the building closed

943
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,039
for the night. The overhead lies shifted their soft tremor familiar.

944
00:46:56,199 --> 00:46:58,480
I listened for the murmur of vorses, the spectral shuffle

945
00:46:58,519 --> 00:47:00,920
behind the stacks, but heard on in my own fierce breath.

946
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,159
A cold druft curled along my ankle's insisting, bringing the

947
00:47:04,199 --> 00:47:07,559
scent of cardboard and old dust somewhere deeper. I could

948
00:47:07,559 --> 00:47:09,719
feel the press of anticipation as sent of the library

949
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,320
not quite finished with its most recent story or with me.

950
00:47:13,119 --> 00:47:16,079
My fist closed around the card, I slid the drawer shut,

951
00:47:16,159 --> 00:47:18,679
the mechanism grown in as if protesting its enforced order.

952
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:21,320
I turned my key, locked it with a click, and

953
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:25,000
listened as the footsteps retreated into silence. The sky outside

954
00:47:25,039 --> 00:47:27,559
flashed with distant lightning. The stacks seemed to breathe and

955
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:29,960
out the rhythm of the building, stretching itself into its

956
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:33,119
next night of quiet, watchful sleep. And as I left

957
00:47:33,159 --> 00:47:35,320
for home, walking out into the humid dark, though appending

958
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:37,199
card burning coal in my pocket, I knew one thing,

959
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:39,800
more surely than ever before. The final catalog was never

960
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:43,440
truly complete, and some stores would always be waiting between

961
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:45,480
the lines for someone willing to read them, and one

962
00:47:45,559 --> 00:47:48,480
day to finish the record. One last time. I left

963
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:50,880
the library with the new pending card, burning coal and

964
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,800
unreal in my pocket. Rain shivered down from a sky

965
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:56,519
the color of worn coins and twilight after taste clon

966
00:47:56,599 --> 00:47:59,599
to the city stonework. On the walk home, each step

967
00:47:59,639 --> 00:48:01,719
fell so lightly out of sync with gravity, as if

968
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:03,679
the earth assisted my every effort to leave behind the

969
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,880
and finish business of Room thirty nine. I fingered the card,

970
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,199
tracing the need familiar lips of my handwriting one I

971
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,519
hadn't put to the card. The building's facade slipped behind me,

972
00:48:12,639 --> 00:48:15,440
each window darkening as if blinking closed one by one.

973
00:48:16,119 --> 00:48:18,320
Sleeve turned out to be little more than a polite fiction.

974
00:48:19,039 --> 00:48:20,800
I lay in the half light of my apartment, sheets

975
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:23,280
tangled at my ankles, the old radiator cleaning, how slow

976
00:48:23,519 --> 00:48:26,800
erratic measures. I kept expecting footsteps in the hallway, at

977
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:28,599
the scrape of foul drawers, but it was only the wind.

978
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:31,800
When I finally did fade out. I dreamed in catalogs.

979
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,320
Pages shuffled endlessly, voices blurring together, each one reciting pieces

980
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:38,760
of stores half remembered and then cut off mid sentence.

981
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:41,760
At breakfast, the card sat propped against the sugar bowl.

982
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,079
I had no memory of placing it there. A handwriting

983
00:48:45,119 --> 00:48:47,199
seemed to warp and shimmer until I blinked and it

984
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,239
was once again only mine. For a moment, I considered

985
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:54,320
calling Marrable. I pictured her pale, steady gaze, her voice determined,

986
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:57,480
but row from loss. But what could I say? The

987
00:48:57,599 --> 00:49:00,280
catalogs finish, but not from me in I said, I

988
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:02,559
pocketed the card and resolved to return to the library

989
00:49:02,559 --> 00:49:05,000
ahead of my shift, reasoning that daylight that activity might

990
00:49:05,119 --> 00:49:08,480
lend some protection. Are at the least perspective. The building

991
00:49:08,559 --> 00:49:11,360
loomed massive and inert as ever, but in the sharp sun,

992
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,559
its spattered marble looked less funereal. Only the crows on

993
00:49:14,599 --> 00:49:17,159
the roof, hunched together like philosophers awake, seemed to know

994
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:19,559
what the day held. I let myself in with my

995
00:49:19,639 --> 00:49:23,320
staff fab feeling the trembling anticipation that always accompanied forbidden knowledge.

996
00:49:24,039 --> 00:49:26,639
Frank's old notebooks sat and touched inside the staff cage,

997
00:49:26,639 --> 00:49:29,480
a parallel to the card in my pocket. Before starting

998
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:33,000
any official work, I leave through the pages blank, except

999
00:49:33,039 --> 00:49:35,280
for one new line. I didn't recall the unfinished entry

1000
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:38,119
finds its author. I felt certain he slide coldly into

1001
00:49:38,159 --> 00:49:40,480
my gut before I could talk myself out of it.

1002
00:49:40,599 --> 00:49:43,000
I walked down to the basement, the corridor stretching and narrowing,

1003
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,719
as if refusing to yield its true dimensions. The half

1004
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:48,079
sealed doors and dead bulb alcoves had returned to their

1005
00:49:48,159 --> 00:49:50,760
usual arrangement. But when I checked the staff only stare,

1006
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,800
I found the forbidden room locked. There was no evidence

1007
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:56,280
the door had ever scraped open, Yet the memory of

1008
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:59,920
that place pressed against my temples above fluorescent lights pined

1009
00:50:00,039 --> 00:50:02,559
and guttered. I made a circuit of the public floor,

1010
00:50:02,639 --> 00:50:05,679
returning books, checking in with Ethan, who merely grunted acknowledgment.

1011
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:09,480
It all felt ordinary, perfumptory, as if the previous weeks

1012
00:50:09,519 --> 00:50:11,559
had been no waking dream. I set up at the

1013
00:50:11,599 --> 00:50:14,280
reference desk, car tupped firmly in the breast pocket of

1014
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,320
my shirt, and tried to lose myself in routine. It failed.

1015
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:20,280
Each time I locked an overdue item, the word pending

1016
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:23,320
seemed to leap out more than once. I caught myself

1017
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:26,280
writing it, where no such status was warrened. I checked

1018
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:29,679
the staff schedule Marble's name was absent. I called hersel

1019
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:32,719
no answer, but the voicemail picked up immediately. If your

1020
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:34,960
calling about my end is done, I'm safe. Please don't

1021
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,440
leave new messages. I hid in, unsettled by her finality.

1022
00:50:39,079 --> 00:50:41,320
Just before noon, I wandered into the stacks to check

1023
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:45,000
in the microffish drawers. Nothing unusual, the same scuffed handles,

1024
00:50:45,079 --> 00:50:47,960
the same faint library mask. But drawer thirty nine was

1025
00:50:48,039 --> 00:50:51,079
jammed halfway open. I pulled it out, only the single

1026
00:50:51,159 --> 00:50:54,360
card still waiting, still mark of tomorrow's day. I sounded

1027
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:57,039
very soft, very near, distowed the security of the silence

1028
00:50:57,079 --> 00:51:00,960
behind me. I turned. There was nothing, no figure, no movement,

1029
00:51:01,119 --> 00:51:03,719
only the rouse and rows of an accustomed order. I

1030
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:05,719
set the car back in the drawer, half expecting it

1031
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,760
to resist, but it slid into place without prudence. As

1032
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,800
I locked the drawer, my phone vibrated. It was an

1033
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:14,719
e mail from myself, but not from my current address,

1034
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:17,119
rather from the university account I hadn't used in ears.

1035
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,880
The subject lined pending the body a single sentence. You

1036
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,760
can't archive what's still happening. The rational part of my

1037
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:27,400
mind whispered about Nebuk errors of some clever fishing scheme,

1038
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:31,360
but I knew better. Someone or something wanted to underline

1039
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:34,320
the point. The cycle wasn't broken. My name, my story

1040
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,400
had become the latest entry, the unfinished thought. My attempts

1041
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,119
at closure had only sparked a new rhythm in hissauceless sequence.

1042
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:43,280
That afternoon, on my break, I found Ethan just inside

1043
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:45,960
the foy. He was standing with his back to the glass,

1044
00:51:46,159 --> 00:51:49,119
arms folded, blinking at something only he could see. I

1045
00:51:49,199 --> 00:51:52,000
took a chance. Do you remember when you started here?

1046
00:51:52,639 --> 00:51:56,000
I asked quietly. Did you ever get involved with appending books?

1047
00:51:56,039 --> 00:52:00,079
The missing staff? He turned the movement, slow, deliberate. I

1048
00:52:00,119 --> 00:52:03,079
don't answer questions about the records. Nobody does. It's safer

1049
00:52:03,159 --> 00:52:05,960
that way, he said, voice gutter, all with warning. You

1050
00:52:06,079 --> 00:52:08,320
want advice. If it starts over with you, best write

1051
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:11,119
your own ending. Don't let someone else fall it. As

1052
00:52:11,159 --> 00:52:12,920
he walked away, I caught the glint of something on

1053
00:52:13,039 --> 00:52:15,880
his security badgets, just below his name in microscopic print,

1054
00:52:16,039 --> 00:52:19,880
custodian temporary. I remembered Frank's words, Everyone's just dust in

1055
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:22,599
the stacks, some more than others. The rest of the

1056
00:52:22,639 --> 00:52:25,840
shift passed in a state of suspended reality. Each new task.

1057
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:29,079
Shoving books, up dating dona lucks, replacing spentNA carried a

1058
00:52:29,119 --> 00:52:31,559
feint impossibility, as though I had already completed these same

1059
00:52:31,639 --> 00:52:34,679
actions in another time. I forced myself to focus on

1060
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:37,119
the practical fix. The flickering light in the cage prepless

1061
00:52:37,159 --> 00:52:40,239
for new accessions, so at the latest returns. No matter

1062
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:42,760
how I tried, my hand drifted always back to the

1063
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:45,920
drawer in a single perfect card. When the evening librarian

1064
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,639
arrived to relieve me, I lingoed at my station, unwilling

1065
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,559
to leave, but also unable to construct an excuse for staying. Instead,

1066
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:56,280
I found myself drawn involuntarily toward the history alcove. There,

1067
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:58,679
I studied the city's old blue prints, overlaying them with

1068
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,719
the libraries as built diagrams. The room where all this

1069
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:04,239
had culminated to the forbidden room, now didn't exist, not

1070
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:07,559
by any measure. According to the documents. The main building's

1071
00:53:07,599 --> 00:53:11,360
foundation simply stopped, untroubled and solid ground. Yet as I

1072
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:13,960
scanned the faint cross sections, a new element drifted to

1073
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,800
the surface. Schematic initials scrolled into the lower right corners

1074
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:20,440
in dark blue pencil, consistent through decades of plans, sometimes

1075
00:53:20,559 --> 00:53:24,199
m s, sometimes Kael even once c W. I blinked,

1076
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:27,639
rubbing my eyes, e w my own initials in a

1077
00:53:27,679 --> 00:53:31,440
script iirily like my natural handwriting, only more formal, more archaic.

1078
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,000
Beneath that, written in the finest, most secret margin, the

1079
00:53:35,039 --> 00:53:38,559
phrase the final catalog is never closed, only delayed. My

1080
00:53:38,639 --> 00:53:42,360
breath became ragged. Someone or something was scripting my participation,

1081
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:45,960
whether or not I'd agreed. An old feeling crept in dread,

1082
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:49,559
mingled with anticipation. I checked my phone. It was only

1083
00:53:49,639 --> 00:53:52,320
five forty four, not yet dark, but the building's silence

1084
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:55,440
thickened impulsives me. I pulled my staff keys and slept

1085
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:58,199
down the stairs to the basement again. Half Way along

1086
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,960
the arching main hall, I paused. It was the only

1087
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,199
shadows that conspired this time. A figure detached itself from

1088
00:54:04,199 --> 00:54:07,119
the gloomy of the old fire exit. Astuped familiar silhouette.

1089
00:54:07,679 --> 00:54:11,039
It was Missus Farber. She looked older now, thinner eyes

1090
00:54:11,079 --> 00:54:13,880
bruised deep into their sockets, but her composure was unbroken.

1091
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:17,599
She held a sheaf of yellowed papers. You shouldn't have

1092
00:54:17,679 --> 00:54:20,280
to face this alone, she said, Her voice struck a

1093
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,360
note between sympathy and warning. We asked too, much of

1094
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:25,639
people like you always half. But there is something I

1095
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:28,159
want to show you before you act. She motioned for

1096
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:30,800
me to follow her. We passed down a side hall

1097
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,199
seldom used any more, and at its end reached a door,

1098
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,760
nearly pinted city issue beaige, but with the old steel

1099
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,639
plaques stole affixed cattle loogging private. Without a word, Farber

1100
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:42,519
gestured me in sigh. The room was square, plain and

1101
00:54:42,639 --> 00:54:44,920
nearly empty, but in its solitary cent await at another

1102
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:48,000
desk twined to the one in the forbidden room. This one, however,

1103
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,360
was impossibly clean, knowing blot or engravings, only a simple

1104
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:54,000
glass cover case displaying a Typerton page behind the glass

1105
00:54:54,039 --> 00:54:56,880
and not fact no one seemed willing to touch. Farbara

1106
00:54:56,920 --> 00:55:00,199
approached and lifted the glass with careful hands. This is

1107
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:03,719
the founding inventory, the first catalog sheet, she explained, When

1108
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:06,480
the library opened, every item, every stuff member, even every

1109
00:55:06,519 --> 00:55:10,280
maintenance request was painstakingney locked by hand. I started the page.

1110
00:55:11,079 --> 00:55:13,639
Every line was complete save one, the very last, where

1111
00:55:13,639 --> 00:55:16,199
a name and staff number sat blank, only pending and

1112
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:19,320
faded incoccupying the cell. She looked at me, and for

1113
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:21,280
the first time I saw tees trapped in the wrinkles

1114
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:24,760
beside her eyes. I never filled it in, Margaretess didn't either.

1115
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:27,400
No one finishes it. Whoever is last, whoever cares most,

1116
00:55:27,519 --> 00:55:30,360
ends up as the record's witness, and sometimes more. I

1117
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:33,920
reached for a word, any word, but none came, Faber continued,

1118
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:37,239
voice brittle. I've spent twenty years keeping things open, leaving

1119
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:39,280
the cardum filed so the patter worn't spin tight and

1120
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:41,480
claim anyone whole. But the pending comes for each of

1121
00:55:41,599 --> 00:55:44,000
us sooner or later. I wanted to spare you, but

1122
00:55:44,119 --> 00:55:46,480
I see now there's no way out except through. She

1123
00:55:46,599 --> 00:55:48,440
handed me a key, one o mart smaller than my

1124
00:55:48,519 --> 00:55:51,920
own staff fob. This opens room thirty nine till tomorrow.

1125
00:55:52,039 --> 00:55:53,840
If you want a future free of this, you've one

1126
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:56,639
chance to write yourself out. Burn the card, assign the entry.

1127
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:59,559
But tell the truth. She blinked, as if something pained

1128
00:55:59,559 --> 00:56:03,239
her deeply. But remember what you write were rays becomes

1129
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:05,400
part of the memory of this place. Choose carefully who

1130
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:07,880
you are doing it for, the library, yourself, or the

1131
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:11,159
once who disappear. She brushed past me, a shadow folded

1132
00:56:11,199 --> 00:56:14,599
an on itself, drifting toward the exit. At the threshold,

1133
00:56:14,679 --> 00:56:19,039
she paused, don't linger Tom Not After midnight, her footsteps

1134
00:56:19,159 --> 00:56:21,320
ed into silence, leaving me in the company of ghosts

1135
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:24,360
and decisions. I grouped the key, cold and waitless as

1136
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:27,159
a new hope were final for it. I returned upstairs,

1137
00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:31,000
adrenaline rolling through me. My mind circle Farbre's message, burn

1138
00:56:31,079 --> 00:56:34,679
the card, do sign the catalog. Both promised consequences, though

1139
00:56:34,679 --> 00:56:37,599
which were free and which would bind was murky. Part

1140
00:56:37,639 --> 00:56:39,599
of misscreamed to walk away, to stuff the card deep

1141
00:56:39,639 --> 00:56:42,079
in a random shelf, found my resignation and vanish into

1142
00:56:42,119 --> 00:56:45,000
the city. Another part need it desperately to finish the

1143
00:56:45,079 --> 00:56:47,920
unfinished story, not only for the catalog's sake, but for mine.

1144
00:56:48,559 --> 00:56:51,079
As the sky bruised into evening and the staff trickled away,

1145
00:56:51,199 --> 00:56:53,960
I made my plan. I covered the card, every detail,

1146
00:56:54,079 --> 00:56:56,199
every brush of my handwriting, then placed the copy, not

1147
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,360
the original, in my pocket. The real pending card I

1148
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:02,440
buried inside an old Referent volume years out of circulation,

1149
00:57:02,639 --> 00:57:04,719
hiding it in a crevice where only a deliberate seeker

1150
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:08,199
could ever hoped to find it. I weeded at ten

1151
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:11,559
fifty nine. With the last patron gun and securities rounds locked,

1152
00:57:11,639 --> 00:57:13,719
I navigated down to room thirty nine, and locked the

1153
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:17,159
door and slipped inside. The forbidden room felt different this time.

1154
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:20,360
A breath of mild air replaced its former coal dust

1155
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:22,480
and shadow read the shelt, but the oppressive sense of

1156
00:57:22,519 --> 00:57:25,599
weighted lessened even about it. A forty two volume on

1157
00:57:25,639 --> 00:57:28,719
the desk sat at rest, as if slumbering. I sat

1158
00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:32,679
the desk was haunted by previous ghosts, ghostly scratches where

1159
00:57:32,679 --> 00:57:35,079
pencils had danced, the smudge of hands too, fold of

1160
00:57:35,119 --> 00:57:37,800
longing or fear. I set the duplicate card in the

1161
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:39,960
blotter and drew a match from the old supply drawer below.

1162
00:57:40,599 --> 00:57:44,320
The act of striking. The match was ceremonial mechanical. I hesitated,

1163
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:48,639
fire flickered, catching the card's corner. The flames licked higher,

1164
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:51,719
hungry for paper and conclusions. For a second or two,

1165
00:57:51,880 --> 00:57:54,239
I felt something shift the ethic and hush inside Room

1166
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:56,719
thirty nine. Crew charged. The temperature plummeted, as if a

1167
00:57:56,760 --> 00:57:59,519
cold wind had seeped from the card itself. Smoke rose

1168
00:57:59,559 --> 00:58:02,280
in a thin, twisting spiral. I watched the name, then

1169
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:05,679
the word depending dissolved ash. My own reflection wavered in

1170
00:58:05,719 --> 00:58:08,239
the death's surface, shuddering with the last glimmer of light,

1171
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:11,000
a pressure built in my skull, the sharp tingle of

1172
00:58:11,039 --> 00:58:14,400
wordless voices just out of range, I heard, or imagined,

1173
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:16,599
I heard the voices of Frame, of tilt, Acasmir, of

1174
00:58:16,639 --> 00:58:19,480
margaret Ess, layered atop each other. You can finish it,

1175
00:58:19,639 --> 00:58:23,000
their echoes urged. But to finish is to close yourself inside.

1176
00:58:23,599 --> 00:58:26,280
The last cinder flotted out, and the ear relaxed its grip.

1177
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:29,480
I exhaled, coughing, as the smoke flattened along the ceiling.

1178
00:58:30,119 --> 00:58:33,079
I awaited, heart hammering. Would the patterns snap back and

1179
00:58:33,159 --> 00:58:36,079
trap me here with the others who never left? Would

1180
00:58:36,159 --> 00:58:38,880
burning the card shrewly erase my trace from the library's memory.

1181
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:43,079
The silence spun out. Nothing else happened in no spectral figures,

1182
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:47,960
no rearranging shadows, only the comfort of unhurried emptness. Yet

1183
00:58:48,039 --> 00:58:50,320
it was in peace, exactly more, the rest of stillness

1184
00:58:50,320 --> 00:58:52,800
and a clearing after the storm, charged with the possibility

1185
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:56,360
of aftershocks. I glance around nothing and no one. I

1186
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:58,760
post back the chair, hands trembling, and stepped out into

1187
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:02,599
the corridor. Lockslid satisfying shot behind me. I checked my pockets,

1188
00:59:02,679 --> 00:59:05,800
no card, no token, just the recorder I always carried

1189
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:08,039
I win my way up the stairs and back to

1190
00:59:08,119 --> 00:59:11,039
the staff cage. In the final hour before dawn, I

1191
00:59:11,119 --> 00:59:13,639
filed the night's audio log, reciting the facts as plainly

1192
00:59:13,679 --> 00:59:16,239
as I could. Room thirty nine access catalog called for

1193
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:20,119
tom status previously Penning, now destroyed by author, no other anomalies,

1194
00:59:20,199 --> 00:59:24,239
building quiet inventory up to date. With reluctance, I signed off,

1195
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:27,280
submitted the log to the digital archive as the computer's

1196
00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:30,960
green chipwalk Winton affirmation. I felt an inexplicable grief. A

1197
00:59:31,039 --> 00:59:33,440
door had closed, But whether on danger or on truth,

1198
00:59:33,559 --> 00:59:36,239
I couldn't be sure. Did I secure my own release

1199
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:38,920
or simply delay in as his binding. The days that

1200
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:42,559
followed were neither blissful nor cursed. Marrable returned to work

1201
00:59:42,599 --> 00:59:44,639
for just one more shift, claiming she only wished to

1202
00:59:44,639 --> 00:59:48,199
say goodbye to the stacks. She smiled at me, bright, resilient,

1203
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:51,960
and heartbreakingly imburned. Thank you for what you did, she whispered.

1204
00:59:52,679 --> 00:59:54,480
My aunt's voter showed up in an old album at

1205
00:59:54,519 --> 00:59:56,760
home for the first time in years. I can remember

1206
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:59,480
her as Hull. She pressed a hand over mine, holding

1207
00:59:59,519 --> 01:00:03,199
it a moment longer than convention allowed. Take care of yourself, Tom,

1208
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:06,000
you know more about the gaps in most Frank was

1209
01:00:06,039 --> 01:00:08,199
gone the cities. It just staff box up his oddments

1210
01:00:08,239 --> 01:00:11,239
in a single afternoon, the battered notebook disappearing into the shuffle.

1211
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:15,119
Farber's retirement went unexplained, our office already commandeered by a

1212
01:00:15,159 --> 01:00:18,159
young interim supervisor whose worst nightmare was a misfiled invoice,

1213
01:00:18,239 --> 01:00:21,440
not a restless ghost. That week, while shelving returns in

1214
01:00:21,519 --> 01:00:24,039
the legal reference corner, I found, wedged between two and

1215
01:00:24,119 --> 01:00:26,800
touched volumes, a clip newspaper from nineteen fifty nine, a

1216
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:30,280
tiny article about a missing librarian. The headline read cattle

1217
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:34,039
loger vanishes, only pending card remains. The photo showed a

1218
01:00:34,079 --> 01:00:36,599
woman standing beneath the arch of the library's main entrance,

1219
01:00:36,639 --> 01:00:40,920
smile tight as weary, margaredess, I presumed on the back

1220
01:00:41,079 --> 01:00:44,519
in blue pencil, closure is conditional. After that I carried

1221
01:00:44,519 --> 01:00:47,679
a new kind of caution. I answered routine questions, lowered

1222
01:00:47,719 --> 01:00:50,599
every regular return, turned out the lights pumptilessly at closing.

1223
01:00:51,159 --> 01:00:53,840
But I remained quietly. The building's an official witness, her

1224
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:56,559
role I both resented and honored. It was as if

1225
01:00:56,639 --> 01:00:59,840
some knot beneath the library's surface had loosened. Card drawers

1226
01:01:00,039 --> 01:01:03,480
opened and closed without complaint. No more coal drafts tangled

1227
01:01:03,519 --> 01:01:06,000
at my ankles, No more voices rose in the stacks

1228
01:01:06,039 --> 01:01:09,360
after dark. Still, every few nights, my mind circled back

1229
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:12,159
to the catalog in the car had destroying it ended.

1230
01:01:12,199 --> 01:01:13,920
The chain freed me from the endless echo of in

1231
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:16,599
complete entreess are merely shifted the burden, sent it into

1232
01:01:16,719 --> 01:01:20,679
hibernation until the building's memory chose its next author. One evening,

1233
01:01:20,840 --> 01:01:22,719
alone in the empty stacks, I heard a set of

1234
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:25,079
footeps distantly, but no lights flicked to life, and no

1235
01:01:25,159 --> 01:01:28,239
door was banged. The building's new supervisor deemed it a

1236
01:01:28,239 --> 01:01:31,760
symptom of settling beams, nothing more. Maybe she was right,

1237
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:34,880
But when late on a Friday, I unlocked a forgotten

1238
01:01:34,920 --> 01:01:37,800
storage closet off the periodical's room, searching for a misindonation,

1239
01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:40,320
sledgeo id sscovered tucked inside a bat of green thermos,

1240
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:42,280
exactly like the one that had sat in the basement

1241
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:44,920
cage on my first night, nestled with them as a

1242
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:47,920
single index card, the edges singed the word depending blurred by,

1243
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:50,760
so my own name just barely ledgible beneath thin layers

1244
01:01:50,760 --> 01:01:54,480
of ash. I closed my eyes. I tried to recall

1245
01:01:54,519 --> 01:01:56,119
the sound of my own voices had made that last

1246
01:01:56,119 --> 01:01:59,360
audio look flat, even methodical. There was no fear in

1247
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:01,960
the recording, only a lowning that had yet to be satisfied.

1248
01:02:02,679 --> 01:02:05,440
I checked my watch, one minute to midnight. I stepped

1249
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:07,480
into the main corridor and looked back at the library's

1250
01:02:07,519 --> 01:02:10,519
grand clock, now and forever frozen at twelve four. I

1251
01:02:10,679 --> 01:02:14,000
remembered Faber's words, memory is a living thing, and sometimes

1252
01:02:14,039 --> 01:02:15,719
the best we can do is onward. They absence by

1253
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:18,559
acknowledging it. And so as I switched off the last

1254
01:02:18,639 --> 01:02:20,920
light and locked the day's weight behind the steel and outdoors,

1255
01:02:21,079 --> 01:02:23,559
I made a silent promise to remember what deserve remembrance,

1256
01:02:23,559 --> 01:02:25,960
to permit forgetting where forgiveness was warranted, and to never

1257
01:02:26,119 --> 01:02:28,800
ever leave an entry unfinished. Of completion was within human power.

1258
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:32,519
The library, that living palimpsist exhaled as I left, the

1259
01:02:32,559 --> 01:02:35,320
sigh rippling through shells and light and sown. There would

1260
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:38,920
always be new enters, new blank cards. Others too would

1261
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:41,679
take my blaze, would trace their own names, and some

1262
01:02:42,039 --> 01:02:45,719
inevitability suggests would find themselves pending a hell between stores

1263
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:48,400
half way through the catalog, awaiting the courage or kindness

1264
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:51,360
of the next witness, But for now, for this one cycle,

1265
01:02:51,440 --> 01:02:53,679
the final catalog was as close to stillness as a

1266
01:02:53,719 --> 01:02:57,079
city shadow memory could ever allow. Outside the city's light,

1267
01:02:57,199 --> 01:03:01,880
blinked and beckoned, and that the end. Thank you for listening,

1268
01:03:02,000 --> 01:03:03,320
and I will see you in the next one.