WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.679 The final week the Mariners Lane Library existed as anything 2 00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:09.599 more than as soon to be scaffolded shell. I found 3 00:00:09.640 --> 00:00:12.640 myself as always immersed in the consolations of the ordinary, 4 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:15.679 shifting shelf numbers, popping dustbun is out from behind cabinets, 5 00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:19.600 reconstructing years of minner disorder with slow, deliberate movements. A 6 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:22.960 person of my temperament slepts easily into such work. When 7 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:25.519 forced into retirement, I chosen the familiar as my anchor, 8 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:28.920 listing a place's contents and itscribing order on to chaos, 9 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:31.839 even if nobody was left. Ultimately not even myself to care. 10 00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:34.840 The town's new mayor had sent me a formal request 11 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:37.079 help sort the last holdings of the old branch before 12 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:39.920 the demolition crew rolled in. We want the task, Tom Right, 13 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:43.240 Misses Prescott. I suspected it meant no one else wanted 14 00:00:43.240 --> 00:00:45.759 the job, but I took pride in the trust. The 15 00:00:45.799 --> 00:00:48.159 Mariner's Lane Library was as much mine as a soft 16 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:50.880 chair or garden bed. Forty three years of cattle logging 17 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:53.920 had left my hands in its grain. That afternoon, I 18 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.640 was moving shelf cocases in the Western alcohol where less 19 00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:59.600 who used encyclopedies and all pamphort sets had been resigned. 20 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:02.759 The teep made everything slightly blaw those little flecks of 21 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.480 late day sun dancing, and most through the battered windows cracks. 22 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:08.799 My right hit, always cranky, kept me honestly unto the 23 00:01:08.840 --> 00:01:11.000 job of nudging one heavy shelf outward six inches at 24 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:13.640 a time, chromasing all for the sake of a completeness. 25 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.920 When the back of the shelf jarred, against which should 26 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:18.480 have been ancient plaster, it gave a dull wooden thud instead. 27 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:22.000 Curiosity is rarely dramatic at my age. It is simply 28 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.840 the habit of not letting a detail sit unresolved. A 29 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:27.400 knell Dad swept from my brow and found that an 30 00:01:27.519 --> 00:01:30.159 entire panel painted to match wool and shelf, yet detached 31 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:32.000 at one edge, could be slid out inch by inch 32 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:34.920 with a low rasp. It released with a soft startle, 33 00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:38.079 pop of stale trapped deer. Behind it sat abattered wooden 34 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:40.519 car catalog drawer type I had seen a thousand times, 35 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.879 though this one was utterly unfamiliar. No dust had settled 36 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:47.480 on it, no worn tract or faded stamping. The label 37 00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:50.719 slot was blank. I stared for a heartbeat, then pulled 38 00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:53.159 a free weighed done by an unexpected gravity as a 39 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:55.920 fistery resented being disturbed and shifted all as attention to 40 00:01:55.959 --> 00:01:59.959 me alone. Inside dozens upon dozens of slim catalog cards 41 00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:05.359 raid incrisp alphabetical order ordinary of first glance. Each are Dewey, ivory, rectangle, burrowing, 42 00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:07.760 a tidy block of type. But as I flipped the 43 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.360 first one over flowers of the Cutbank two six hundred 44 00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:12.639 thirty five point nine, a faded bluing symbol like the 45 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:14.520 outline of an open bridge in the top corner, I 46 00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:18.120 noticed the sighted checkout date February thirty first, nineteen fifty six. 47 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:22.080 The next the lighthouse carols dates stamped aplesy Wrath nineteen 48 00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:25.400 seventy three, several more, all with dates that, by every 49 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:29.240 almanac and publishing schedule known did not exist. Yet the 50 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:32.439 cataloging was myticulous, official concise, standardized in the way only 51 00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:35.479 a librarian or a very careful prankster would know, not 52 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:40.039 a single mistaped character. Some had those little mysteriou symbols, intricate, geometric, 53 00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:43.159 almost like secret codes. I felt them in my palm, 54 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:45.400 coll unblemish, as if they had been in touch by 55 00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:48.479 dust or daylight, for the intervening decades. For a moment, 56 00:02:48.599 --> 00:02:51.159 I found myself unsettled, less by the impossibility than by 57 00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:53.439 the sheer confidence. The way each card insisted upon a 58 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:56.280 reality had never been privy to. I flipped a card 59 00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:58.400 over and compared the texture the press of the old 60 00:02:58.439 --> 00:03:01.520 Remington Tye Prita onto the cords store, No mistaking it 61 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:04.879 to these weren't a child's joke. Whoever made them respected order. 62 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:07.719 No library I'd worked in or visited had a system 63 00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:11.000 for such days. Hiding my mild excitement, I pocketed a 64 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:13.400 handful of the oddest cards, with dates stretching from the 65 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:16.520 Eisenhower administration to Reagan's second Tone, and quietly slip the 66 00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:19.400 drawer back. I wanted to think about it, perhaps ath 67 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:22.120 the historical society, but above all I wanted to preserve 68 00:03:22.159 --> 00:03:24.159 the sense of unresolved wonder, as if I'd reached the 69 00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:26.719 hemline of something never meant to be hemmed. There were 70 00:03:26.919 --> 00:03:29.400 that afternoon, no answers, just the neat little weight of 71 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:31.960 those impossible daies sitting in my purse, waiting to upset 72 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:35.400 my week's careful routines. Dryftford Bay had always felt suspended 73 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:38.039 between tights neither fully sea bund nor entirely resigned to 74 00:03:38.120 --> 00:03:41.360 land with cloud brinks that never quite drifted on salt 75 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:44.360 spreading from shingles, and wasters found charming and clocks in 76 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.319 the plaza whose hands sometimes dried behind the hour. The 77 00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:50.080 population was just under four thousand now, or perhaps it 78 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:53.039 had slipped further below since the last rainfall. I'd known 79 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:56.240 most families, including the ones who left my library card number. 80 00:03:56.840 --> 00:03:59.680 If y ask, people called the place kindly sleepy. Yet 81 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.639 things I endured a certain corrosion, not upright neglect more 82 00:04:02.719 --> 00:04:05.240 or soft crumbling, as if every gesture of preservation had 83 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:08.319 to do battle with the damper and unhurried forgetfulness. The 84 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:11.319 main street sign was down to two letters each year, 85 00:04:11.319 --> 00:04:15.000 a femal shop fronts closed, colors blanched away by fog. Still, 86 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.800 among those who stayed there was genuine attachment to clam festivals, 87 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:20.720 to bridge tournaments, to the little idiosyncratic patterns that made 88 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:23.759 up our calendar. Nowhere was the clearer than at marinersleyan 89 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:27.040 library terminal, patient that it was for decades, it stood 90 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:29.000 at the center of the town's sense of self. Children's 91 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:32.240 story Hour every Saturday, book sails out on peeling card tables, 92 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:34.600 civic meetings squeezed into the reading room with the same 93 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:37.920 batter jays for me as less when mapped onto my own. 94 00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:40.360 I'd started as a genial librarian before the shelves reached 95 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:43.319 at full length. I prize that ordered, the endless, low 96 00:04:43.399 --> 00:04:46.600 key clarifying of what should beware and why. It wasn't 97 00:04:46.600 --> 00:04:48.680 so much that I loved solving big mysteries and never 98 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:51.639 pretended to be part. I love the little ones who 99 00:04:51.639 --> 00:04:54.759 shifted the gardening books three inches out of sequence, who 100 00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:56.879 left a half complete a crossword in the staff desk, 101 00:04:57.000 --> 00:04:59.600 only for a mysterious abe jay to finish it weeks later. 102 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:03.240 A track book marks to some track constellations, quietly, lovingly, 103 00:05:03.319 --> 00:05:07.600 unthinkably patient. Ben Rays, now the town's historical society LIDA, 104 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:11.160 had long since replaced the last archivist. Ben was methodical 105 00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:12.879 to a fault. His office gallery was as shrine to 106 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:17.360 misfaul documents, newspaper fragments, and census oddities. A local bred 107 00:05:17.399 --> 00:05:20.759 on details, skeptical of naratives, he accepted nothing without cross reference. 108 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:23.639 If it isn't in free sources, it didn't happen, was 109 00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:27.120 his manter. Well before anyone cared less traditional was Leely 110 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:31.160 Gutierre's high school senior and apologetic prieze of opinion. She 111 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:33.360 signed on half way through the clean out, assigned mostly 112 00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:35.800 to heavy moving and digital cataloging, and supplied a certain 113 00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:38.519 irreverence to save the spiders, missess p you know they 114 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:41.000 own the place, and an odd fearlessness toward the disorder 115 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.240 we uncovered. To her, the entire project seemed less a 116 00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:47.519 solemn duty and more treasure hunt. Our routines in those 117 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:51.399 days were simple, repetitive, and comforting. Each shelf officially was 118 00:05:51.439 --> 00:05:54.920 to be double checked books by condition, rarity, community interests, or, 119 00:05:55.040 --> 00:05:58.480 more often than not, simple nostalgia. Most days the building 120 00:05:58.519 --> 00:06:01.439 felt empty, two early books bock in stacks, sunlight hanging 121 00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:04.040 in rare, chalky sheets across the carpet, the atmosphere hushed 122 00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:06.680 not just by absence, but by a peculiar expectancy, as 123 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:09.120 if the old walls half remembered their reason for existence. 124 00:06:09.839 --> 00:06:12.720 There were seldom great discoveries, the occasional and signed letter, 125 00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:16.240 misplaced postcard, or forgotten photograph surfacing in a return book, 126 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:21.680 small mysteries satisfying. I never expected more from these last days, 127 00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:24.480 certainly not the batch of impossible catalog cards now burning 128 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:28.079 a tidy, insistent hole in my jacket. I delayed investigating 129 00:06:28.079 --> 00:06:31.720 for exactly one night. Curiosity, I told myself, was not 130 00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:33.879 a compulsion. I had simply made a ritual of sorting 131 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:37.040 the unknown. After breakfast the next day, a bicycle crossed 132 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.279 to the Historical Society building to cards in a zippid 133 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:41.600 envelope and found Ben at his desk, nose deep in 134 00:06:41.639 --> 00:06:44.560 the perpetual microfilm reader, as if the world secrets emerged 135 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:49.199 solely from illuminated negatives. He squinted, then raised his head. Elaine, 136 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:52.879 I thought you hated February for filing New Discovery old one. 137 00:06:52.959 --> 00:06:55.319 Actually I need your eyes, I said, and set the 138 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:58.959 cards before him in a fan. Then grundled, adjusting his byfocals, 139 00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:01.680 and began to leaf through the flowers of the cut bank. 140 00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:05.839 He murmured, February thirty first, nineteen fifty six. Well there 141 00:07:05.879 --> 00:07:09.079 is a day to remember. He flipped another apolsiroth Ha 142 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:12.839 all local and Prince. I watched his brow no alarm, 143 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:17.160 only feigned amusement. These camp be errors, I ventured. Every 144 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:20.240 card's a masterpiece of over precise cataloging. But the dates 145 00:07:20.759 --> 00:07:23.120 I gestured and sure how to phrase it without sounding 146 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:27.199 half mad. He pushed the cards back, apparently unfazed. Oh, 147 00:07:27.279 --> 00:07:30.040 calender corks. You'd be surprised how often that happened, Especially 148 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:32.839 in mid century printer's lost count staff got creative old 149 00:07:32.839 --> 00:07:35.040 time solutions. Some folks used what we call or just 150 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:36.759 a dates on paper. Were cod easier to fudge a 151 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:39.920 late return if the date never existed, I suppose, But 152 00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:44.759 in official records, I pressed, Ben shrugged, we've found worse 153 00:07:44.759 --> 00:07:46.720 in the shipyard locks. If you want to see, I'll 154 00:07:46.759 --> 00:07:49.519 pull the microform, but don't expect much. Most years after 155 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:52.000 nineteen fifty, the town council tried to tidy up all 156 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.199 traces of nonsensical dates. He meant at his re assurance, 157 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:58.000 but his detachment only hung the mystery heavier. Can we 158 00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:00.959 check the library's ledgers from that period, I asked her? 159 00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:04.160 Where How childish my question sounded even to myself. Ben 160 00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:06.519 shuffled through the red file cabinet, feeding a roll of 161 00:08:06.519 --> 00:08:10.360 microfoam into the reader, scroll by scroll, official circulation records 162 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:13.680 blinked upon the luminous panel. Feb. Twenty seventh, Feb twenty eighth, 163 00:08:13.720 --> 00:08:16.319 mark first no fend in thirtieth or zero t h s, 164 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:20.279 no missing intervals. It matched the way I recall processing returns. 165 00:08:20.279 --> 00:08:23.839 Nothing skit, nothing slipped. I checked my own retirement journal 166 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:26.879 stored on my phone for good measure. Not single instance 167 00:08:26.879 --> 00:08:30.839 of an impossible day, no errors, everything snug inside the 168 00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:33.399 edges of known time. Just as I was about to 169 00:08:33.399 --> 00:08:35.080 file the cards back in my purse and leave it 170 00:08:35.159 --> 00:08:37.279 a funny bit of town nonsense, the door thought it open, 171 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:39.480 and Leel skitted in a box, balanced on her hip 172 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:42.000 and hair in a cyclone behind her. If you two 173 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:45.200 applauding the great drifted library caper a one inn, she announced, 174 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:48.879 Or did you finally find the secret librarian calendar? She 175 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:52.759 waggled her eyebrows all absurd seriousness. Ben gave her a 176 00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:56.240 perennially suffering look, but the joke lingered. Only if the 177 00:08:56.279 --> 00:08:59.720 librarians Union demands forty day months. Hey, I take a 178 00:08:59.759 --> 00:09:02.559 snat no day on February their diverse, Leela replied, peering 179 00:09:02.600 --> 00:09:06.519 over my shoulder jokes asiet. This sensation came back. The 180 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:09.799 physicality and care of his guards undeniable, but absent from 181 00:09:09.799 --> 00:09:13.200 everything official for a librarian, something not appearing in records, 182 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:15.559 his ann answer in itself, but not, I realized the 183 00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:19.000 kind that closes questions. So I pocketed the cards again. 184 00:09:19.639 --> 00:09:23.080 But the contradiction was quietly, definitely growing. If it was 185 00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:26.279 a prank, it stretched six decades and several staff generations, 186 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:29.519 too meticulous to be jerked, too invisible to be simply real. 187 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:31.840 It's now in my mind. All the drive home, I 188 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:34.240 drafted a list of questions, ticking them off as I went, 189 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.879 Why so detailed? If these were only mistakes, why the symbols? 190 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:42.120 Most crucially, how does a day exist that both leaves 191 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:45.840 documentary residue and vanishes from every formal register. That was 192 00:09:45.840 --> 00:09:48.039 not the end of the week's discoveries. Instead, it was 193 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:50.039 the start of a new routine, edged with a sword 194 00:09:50.039 --> 00:09:53.320 of suppress anticipation. I walked to the library the next morning, 195 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.200 sun bailey up, fog still pressed against the windows, the 196 00:09:56.200 --> 00:09:59.159 echo of my own step sharper than I remembered. Lela 197 00:09:59.279 --> 00:10:02.279 was already waiting, headphones crook, gamely, moving boxes and snapping 198 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:05.360 photos of defunct technology for her blog. I made for 199 00:10:05.399 --> 00:10:07.679 the empty Alco first, sliding the panel open with a 200 00:10:07.720 --> 00:10:11.320 practiced hand. The drawer was still there, no new dust 201 00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:13.639 on the cards, nothing moved that I could see. I 202 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:16.879 spread them all off top a falling table, roughly fifty 203 00:10:16.879 --> 00:10:20.200 five cards, ear less dated March thirty second, nineteen forty eight, 204 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:24.080 the latest October thirty ninth, nineteen ninety one. Every decade 205 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:29.200 represented in uneven handfuls. Each record completes any professional archive title, author, 206 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:32.159 call number, improbable date, and for perhaps a quarter, a 207 00:10:32.200 --> 00:10:34.960 small oddly stylized embum, a clock face with five hands, 208 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:37.440 a staircase with missus steps, an open book that seemed 209 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:39.559 to blur at the right edge. I made a quick 210 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:42.919 inventory of tenos, saw of the strangest one's recording, title, date, author, 211 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:45.399 and symbol, before wandering the denuded stacks to find any 212 00:10:45.399 --> 00:10:48.519 surviving books that might match. Most shells were bare, but 213 00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:51.159 an abandoned rolling cart near the back, probably overlooked during 214 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:54.000 early if sweeps caught my eye. I shifted aside some 215 00:10:54.039 --> 00:10:56.360 older year books and found the Light has Carols, its 216 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:59.159 duly label faded at the bottom. Flipping to the back, 217 00:10:59.399 --> 00:11:02.080 I matched the ch check out cod's inventory number. But 218 00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:04.279 the most curious thing on the fly leaf, some one 219 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:07.240 had written it spidery pencil aple zero fog atnon. You 220 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:10.399 could hear the bells clearly. I scanned the margins near 221 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:12.799 the end of chapter four, a hasty, looping scroll, almost 222 00:11:12.879 --> 00:11:15.480 like someone's half conscious notation don't walk east after the 223 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:18.879 sun's gone. The clocks rung in the square. Similar marginally 224 00:11:18.919 --> 00:11:21.759 recurred in the second book, Weather Plain and Fancy, paired 225 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:25.480 against June thirty ninth, nineteen seventy four in the margin 226 00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:27.759 next to the section on storm tides or Child's drawing 227 00:11:27.759 --> 00:11:30.320 the town plaza with the fountain stature replaced by something 228 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:33.000 like offish or perhaps a lamp at a road leading 229 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:36.039 out of town. There, in reality had never existed. I 230 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:39.240 felt increasingly that these books, battered and mostly irrelevant to 231 00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:42.440 anyone looking for proper literary value, were quietly collaborating with 232 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:46.600 the phantom dates. Each contained a reference, sometimes small or nonsensical, 233 00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:49.279 sometimes an altered factor calendar and notation rung for any 234 00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:51.679 true year, a drawing that made no ordinary sense, or 235 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:54.720 a cryptic command don't answer the western form before breakfast. 236 00:11:55.320 --> 00:11:57.840 I copied these into my note book, a strange satisfaction 237 00:11:57.879 --> 00:12:00.960 building alongside the unease. What made it more puzzling was 238 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:04.080 the periodic confidence in the catalog, in the handwriting in ink. 239 00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:07.639 Whoever put these traces they believed, or wanted someone to believe, 240 00:12:07.799 --> 00:12:10.360 these days were not in error, but a presence demanding record. 241 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:14.759 Curiosity expanded into a more public investigation, a pot through 242 00:12:14.799 --> 00:12:17.840 a portion of the local interest newspaper scot books yellowing 243 00:12:17.879 --> 00:12:21.159 and swollen with mildew stashed under the front desk. Nor 244 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:24.480 Driftwood Daily had ever published a masthead for February thirty first. 245 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:28.039 The scattered among the cliff half stuck photographs, one leaped 246 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:29.840 out the black and white image of the Harbor Covender 247 00:12:29.879 --> 00:12:33.159 snow stamped faintly and indogo on the reverse, feb thirty first, 248 00:12:33.240 --> 00:12:36.639 Snow at the Harbor, nineteen sixty two. The handwriting was 249 00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:39.159 the same as in the lighthouse Cow's marginative, flowing and 250 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.639 sparring oddly. Matter of fact, my own memory was no 251 00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:45.159 longer a reliable witness. Too many birth days faded into 252 00:12:45.159 --> 00:12:48.240 the same January gray. But others in town I hoped 253 00:12:48.279 --> 00:12:51.440 would have sharper recollections. I called on Miss s Vella, 254 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:53.879 a retired teacher of such precisions. She could still rattle 255 00:12:53.879 --> 00:12:56.519 off the multiplication tables at nineteen and recall every child's 256 00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:59.039 face from her first year rolls nineteen fifty two to 257 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:02.080 nineteen seventeen nine. We settled in her back center and 258 00:13:02.120 --> 00:13:05.799 tea and cracked cups. Well, sometimes people wrote soley dates, 259 00:13:06.039 --> 00:13:08.279 you see, she said, after I showed her the cards. 260 00:13:08.919 --> 00:13:11.200 It was something we teachers joked about April Zeroth for 261 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:13.399 assignment left too late, or March thirty fifth for the 262 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:16.120 last day of snow. The printers sometimes made mistakes, you know, 263 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:18.200 always a rush at the end of the month. She 264 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:20.759 spoke with a gentle amusement, not apology, as if its 265 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:23.759 oddity was its charm. But did those days feel different? 266 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:27.919 I pressed? Or was it truly just a error? Miss 267 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.279 Savilla set her cup down, not different exactly, just this 268 00:13:31.399 --> 00:13:33.759 lit by. You didn't mark them, but you remember to nibits. 269 00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:36.159 The kids went out, came back muddy as usual. Once 270 00:13:36.279 --> 00:13:37.879 my first grade was put on a show and date 271 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:39.960 to the program April Zerof. None of the parents remarked 272 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:43.879 on it. It was understood, somehow, I left perplex Why then, 273 00:13:44.039 --> 00:13:48.480 the persistent confidence in these impossible days, Why such calm 274 00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:50.720 if it was only a local joke. But terreceas felt 275 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:53.960 disproportionate and rather too hourfully distributed across six full decades. 276 00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:57.320 Returning to the library. I found leocross legged on the floor, 277 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:00.279 sifting through a heap of donated family albums. I want 278 00:14:00.279 --> 00:14:03.039 to see this, she said, I was twinkling behind pink glasses. 279 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.039 She held out an old Polaroi bleach around the edges 280 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:09.639 labeled May thirty ninth family picnic, the scene her great 281 00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:12.039 uncle did. A boy snapped mid bite on a sandwich, 282 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:15.240 every one around him smiling into the lens, apparently unconcerned. 283 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:17.679 They designed the picnic to a date it simply never existed. 284 00:14:18.279 --> 00:14:21.799 I asked, Did anyone think that was odd? She shrugged. 285 00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:24.080 He used to say the lawn months were for big 286 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:26.759 families and too much potato salad. But honestly, it just 287 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:29.360 kind of was. No one talks about it now. What 288 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:31.519 I was assembling in fragments was more than a single 289 00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:35.039 prank or a missiring tradition. The clues were subtle and widespread, 290 00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:38.440 as if some quiet, selectiveniche co existed with bone deep certainty. 291 00:14:39.080 --> 00:14:42.720 Every artifact, book, photo, anecdote balance between the visible and invisible. 292 00:14:43.279 --> 00:14:45.799 If you believed the official channels, none of these things 293 00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:48.120 had happened. If you trusted the town's peripheral records of 294 00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:51.559 private evidence, they'd happened often enough to demand attention. By 295 00:14:51.639 --> 00:14:54.960 week's end, I've filled fifteen pages of my note, detailing marginalia, 296 00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:58.759 cataloging photographs and their dates, itemizing local sayings half remembered. 297 00:14:59.399 --> 00:15:02.240 I didn't yet tr cross my explanations, but my curiosity 298 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:04.840 had consumed my sleep and sharp in the days. The 299 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:07.799 Mariners Lane Library's demolition now seemed, in a strange way, 300 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:11.120 secondary to the real matter at hand. On Monday, I 301 00:15:11.159 --> 00:15:13.399 set out to find a more durect witness, someone connected 302 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:15.679 to the library from the beginning, whose memory might test 303 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:18.960 the bounds of plausibility. That led me to mister O'Connell. 304 00:15:19.519 --> 00:15:22.759 Visiting him, the oldest living former librarian, was an exercise 305 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:26.080 and ritual. He'd been retired for thirty years, A fixture 306 00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:28.240 at the north facing window of the Seaside care Home 307 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:31.159 at ninety nine, his mind was whip shop, his humor 308 00:15:31.240 --> 00:15:34.480 equally unfildered. He greeted me with the grin eyes twinkling. 309 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:38.600 I hear your dismantling my legacy, Elaine, about time only 310 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:41.519 what was scheduled to collapse? Arthur, I replied, producing my 311 00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:45.039 envelope of impossible date cards with a flourish pureaucracy at 312 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:48.320 its finest. He sniff accepting the cords, his fingers trembling 313 00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:52.399 only slightly. He leafed through, expression and readable. I explained 314 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:54.960 my investigation, how the cards had appeared, their contradiction to 315 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:57.720 every formal record, a strange comfort and irritation I took 316 00:15:57.720 --> 00:16:01.840 in their persistence. To my surprise, mister O'Connell simply grinned wider. 317 00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:04.679 While every town has its days that don't count, drift 318 00:16:04.679 --> 00:16:06.559 would just lend a few books on ours, is all? 319 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:11.120 So you remember these these days, though always phantom days, 320 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:13.080 we called them. If you wanted to try something unusual, 321 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:15.919 mover a shelf, run an napproved story, hour, miss a delivery, 322 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:18.399 you do it. Then, he winked, as if sharing school 323 00:16:18.440 --> 00:16:22.799 yard secret no official consequences. But why do diaries and 324 00:16:22.840 --> 00:16:26.200 marginalia mark the days when proper records like town rolls 325 00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:28.799 on ledgers never show even a hint? For instance, the 326 00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:32.639 microfilm shows nothing amiss. Mister O'Connell cocked his head wheels, 327 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:35.320 turning em a man. Records or what you look for? 328 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:38.679 Aren't they? Calendars know only what's printed on them, But memories, 329 00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:41.360 memories and little private ledgers they keep their own time. 330 00:16:42.039 --> 00:16:44.159 Is it just forgetfulness or is something else at play? 331 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:47.080 I press, feeling a ripple of frustration at the almost 332 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:50.840 philosophical illusiveness. He took a long moment, caressing the coroner 333 00:16:50.879 --> 00:16:53.759 of the most battered car, then spoke for slow. It 334 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.200 depends what you're looking for, Lane. The library made its 335 00:16:56.240 --> 00:16:58.519 own locks those days. Nobody expected them to count for 336 00:16:58.559 --> 00:17:00.879 counsel or pay roll. But if something truly with while 337 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:04.319 or peculiar happened, well you'd find a trace somewhere. Honestly, 338 00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:06.400 most people just liked having a place for things that 339 00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:09.079 didn't fit. It was not a direct answer, but I 340 00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:11.359 felt a subtle transformation in my own stance as I 341 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.359 left the care home. Before, i'd imagine the clerical and 342 00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:17.400 normally some eccentric past had librarian inserting secret dates as 343 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:19.599 a kind of private joke or a printer's error that 344 00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:23.079 grew into a minor myth. But with mister O'Connell's shugging acceptance, 345 00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:25.559 I realized the phenomenon was an open secret to gap 346 00:17:25.559 --> 00:17:27.799 at the edge of town consensus. Not so much hidden, 347 00:17:27.799 --> 00:17:30.160 its simply an acknowledged by the power of casual agreement. 348 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:33.000 On my kitchen table that evening, I spread out all 349 00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:35.920 my gathered fragments, a timeline from cattle or carts, scold notes, 350 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:39.960 newspaper clippings, annotated photographs, or running list of sayings. Hope 351 00:17:39.960 --> 00:17:42.880 for rain on March thirty second. Don't make promises after April, 352 00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:44.920 z eer wrath. If you forget your umbrella, wait for 353 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.839 June thirty nine. Overlaying family diaries, library stash, and public records, 354 00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:52.960 a strange pattern emmeerred. Almost everyone, at one time or 355 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:57.279 another referenced or recorded lost days. They were invoked, sometimes 356 00:17:57.319 --> 00:18:00.920 for excuses or for stories, sometimes as placeholders, and sometimes 357 00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:04.559 with a nudge, nudge, everyone knows manner. Official histories rejected 358 00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:07.359 them at right. No tax receipts, court filings, or public 359 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:11.480 notices bore the marks. But private records, notes, voet or dates, 360 00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:15.640 invitations carried these impossible companions, assertive and calmly integrated, not 361 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.000 as a rebellion against time, but as its gentle editing. 362 00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:21.559 I sat back, pencil in my mouth. Could the entire 363 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:25.039 town have quietly woven a tradition, perhaps unconscious, perhaps deliberate, 364 00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:27.839 in and out of the formal calendar. Driftwood bays. Lost 365 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:30.960 days weren't just a catalog and curiosity. They defined a 366 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:33.960 corridor of secret time, unnoticed and an remarked by those outside, 367 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.279 gently accepted Within part one of my curiosity closed like 368 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:39.960 a door not fully latched, and beyond it waited the 369 00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:42.839 prospect of even stranger findings, and perhaps a place in 370 00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:46.319 history for all that officially never was. On Tuesday morning, 371 00:18:46.440 --> 00:18:48.759 I arrived at Mariner's Lane with an energy more restless 372 00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:52.279 than diligent. My notebook was swollen with contradictions and questions. 373 00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:54.440 The tinines knot it liked driftwood in a tidal poll, 374 00:18:54.519 --> 00:18:57.160 dates that shouldn't be events no record would own, the community, 375 00:18:57.160 --> 00:18:59.119 content to let some times slip out the back door. 376 00:18:59.720 --> 00:19:02.240 My mind, trained for decades to treat discrepancied as a 377 00:19:02.279 --> 00:19:04.440 call to order, bristled at the idea at the library 378 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:07.519 itself might have played a compass. That sense only strengthened 379 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:10.400 as I moved through the guarded echoing rooms, watching sunlight 380 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:12.640 stripe the empty carpet and pool in thick rectangles of 381 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:16.319 top abandoned desks and chairs, Every scuff surface felt charged. 382 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:19.519 The building was less astructure NEI than a physical memory 383 00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:22.400 or shell, holding onto whichever facts it shows with the 384 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:26.160 official cataloging long since completed, and demolition looming are resolved 385 00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:29.119 to press past the boundaries of normal procedure. I thought 386 00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:31.559 of mister O'Connell's words, days that didn't count, when odd 387 00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:33.759 things could be done. If ever there was a time 388 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:36.200 for such a day, it was now I wanted the 389 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:39.720 unviile dancer, one excluded from all proper ledgers. There had 390 00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:42.000 always been one corner of the building that staff used 391 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:45.200 for unsorted materials. A low ceilinged annex, sealed most years 392 00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:48.839 and bitterly cold even in late spring. Old maps, artifacts 393 00:19:48.839 --> 00:19:51.599 that never found a place in public display. Boxes marked 394 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:54.480 did not archive. Even a few children's lost coats, compressed 395 00:19:54.519 --> 00:19:57.240 by the years, all fail to rest there. During my 396 00:19:57.319 --> 00:20:00.000 younger days I had ventured, and only when absolutely necessary. 397 00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:03.680 Most recently, city code had declared it off limits for mold, 398 00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:08.000 asbestos and structural considerations. But the urge to test boundaries 399 00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:11.079 is sometimes stronger than prudence. The lock on the annex 400 00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:14.400 doll was half rotted and proved little defense. With a tug, 401 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:17.240