WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.480 The sunlight slanted through the east window, feltering dust and 2 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:11.039 shifting ribbons across the genealgi Olcove. I rubbed my knuckles 3 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:13.439 and cast a fond, proprietary glance around the old, high 4 00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:16.000 vaulted room that sent a familiar mixture of lemon, polish, 5 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:19.640 sea wind, and aging parchment. In retirement, I had thought 6 00:00:19.719 --> 00:00:22.000 organizing the library's oldest wind would feel like clothes in 7 00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:26.519 a familiar cover, orderly final. Instead, each warning something quivered 8 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:29.800 with the potential. Maybe it was the proximity of the archives, 9 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:32.600 with a sleepy promise of discovery, or simply the alchemy 10 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:35.799 of light and choire. By now, I'd spend decades crossing 11 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:38.799 between the stacks and catalogs, from dreadnot tomes with spines 12 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:41.039 like driftwood to fragile volumes bound in blue cloth that 13 00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:44.039 left dust on your fingers. Yet today, as I bent 14 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:46.240 with my wool duster between two solid oak and cases, 15 00:00:46.359 --> 00:00:48.560 I saw a bookshelf that didn't fit, not in memory 16 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:51.640 and not in place. It stood plain and an obtrusive, 17 00:00:51.799 --> 00:00:54.799 tucked against the wall where reference bled into forgotten county minutes, 18 00:00:55.159 --> 00:00:57.920 waist high and adorned of indistinct color. Near the new 19 00:00:58.079 --> 00:01:00.640 or antique. It looked as though it had simply always 20 00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:03.719 been there. Yet I was certain, with the sharp librarian's certainty, 21 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:05.040 that I would have marked it, or at least given 22 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:08.319 it a label. They called me precise sometimes old fashioned. 23 00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:10.920 Margaret's got the memory of an awl. Mister Ellis, our 24 00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:15.599 maintenance supervisor, like to say, shells were my territory. Still, 25 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:18.280 this one had a faint out of time presence, neither 26 00:01:18.319 --> 00:01:20.840 belonging to our recent renovations nor to the grander style 27 00:01:20.879 --> 00:01:24.680 of the building's original woodwork. Curiosity stowed just beneath the surface. 28 00:01:24.680 --> 00:01:27.159 As I reached for my notepad. I'd made it a 29 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:29.560 habit over the years to draw curious titles and small 30 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:32.680 local annotations, a signature in the margin, an author whose 31 00:01:32.719 --> 00:01:35.799 name was barely a rumor. The shell's contents at first 32 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:39.719 touch bought only mald Amusement as selection of odd anonymous volumes. 33 00:01:40.359 --> 00:01:42.959 A thick violet book stood upright, boldly titled Alice, a 34 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:46.840 Vanished Inland seas. Now where had that come from? I 35 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:50.120 didn't recall cataloging it, nor even ordering anything similar for 36 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:53.400 our aquatic collection, which tended toward shots and tied tables, 37 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:57.439 never grand speculation, shuckling softly and knelt for a closer look. 38 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:00.879 The violet book call beneath my fingers and papers shimmered 39 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:03.799 faintly like satin, and the gold stamp title caught the glare. 40 00:02:04.439 --> 00:02:07.400 I wrote the title in my note bud. Another volume 41 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:10.080 next to it bore the legend the architecture of night festivals. 42 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:13.800 Nothing I recalled cataloging, not even the binding style felt familiar, 43 00:02:13.879 --> 00:02:16.479 though the print was crisp and clear. I made destroyed 44 00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:18.919 in the row, reached for the duster, and as I 45 00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:21.479 glanced up mid motion, the violet book was gone. In 46 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:23.759 its place stood a slender, green volume the recipes my 47 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:26.919 father left behind, the font lazy, inelegant, the dust jacketinue 48 00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:30.080 for the rest of the shelf. Blinking, I frowned, transferring 49 00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:32.719 weight from one knee, not in pain, but in mild embarrassment. 50 00:02:33.319 --> 00:02:36.280 Had another volunteer passed through in the last minute. The 51 00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:38.639 library was quiet enough that I could hear each shuffle 52 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:42.080 and tread. Was I becoming absent minded? Mixing memory and 53 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:45.840 catalog numbers in my mental ledger. I looked again, notebook 54 00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:47.919 in hand, and now the entry for van Neiston and 55 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:50.919 Seas had vanished, replaced by recipes my father left behind. 56 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:53.439 My notes bore the new title in the same knee 57 00:02:53.479 --> 00:02:56.240 upright hand, A small mister of a strick of memory, perhaps, 58 00:02:56.439 --> 00:02:58.159 or of too many days lost among the tricks to 59 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:01.639 ghosts of forgotten fiction. Only amused, I decided I'd need 60 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:03.639 a stronger cup of tea. After shelving, I made a 61 00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:05.639 mental note to verify the odd book's presence in the 62 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:08.919 day's routine. Truthfully, I'd become fond of these moments, the 63 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:11.199 little friction between the world as it should be and 64 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:14.039 the world as it revealed itself to day. The shelves 65 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:16.000 seemed to promise its own secret, and I was already 66 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:20.719 captivated asterisk. Since retiring five years ago, I had come 67 00:03:20.759 --> 00:03:23.000 to see the library less as a repository of fixed 68 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:25.719 knowledge than as a living thing. My mornings belonged to 69 00:03:25.719 --> 00:03:28.360 a sunlit apartment above the wharf of looking small boats 70 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:30.560 and gulls crossing between the bell towers and the cream 71 00:03:30.599 --> 00:03:34.039 and walnut spread of the tam Beleau. My afternoons inevitably 72 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:36.719 threw me here. The library, as everyone called it, old 73 00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:39.680 enough to warn the definite article. The building itself was 74 00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:42.280 a story made stone. Built at the tail end of 75 00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:44.879 the Victorian boom, it was designed to impress in comfort 76 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:48.039 and equal measure. Gargirls peering from gables, same glass windows, 77 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:50.199 filtering motes of colored light into knooks where you ong 78 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:54.719 mines could hide. Corridors widened into shadowed alcoves. Here the 79 00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:57.919 reference room veered into the genealogy wing, which in turn 80 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.360 led into the archives, with their locked cabinets and all 81 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:04.240 heavy flows. Parts of the library always felt just beyond memory, 82 00:04:04.439 --> 00:04:07.159 like returning to her childhood street and discovering ado you'd 83 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:10.479 never noticed. I'd arrived just before one, eager for a 84 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:14.280 few hours of quite catalog work. My retirement as a mess, 85 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:16.480 Harow often said, with a wrinkle of her nose, was 86 00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:19.800 not absolute mess. Harror had assumed my old role as 87 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:22.519 head librarian after a brisk search. Pramatic and sharp eyed. 88 00:04:22.600 --> 00:04:25.720 She kept the new volunteers in ship sheep. Our relationship 89 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:27.800 ran on half teasing respect. I held the heart of 90 00:04:27.839 --> 00:04:30.519 the archives. She held the keys to the kingdom. If 91 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.120 you find anything out of place to day, let me know, Margaret. 92 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:36.199 Renovations due next week, and I want every shelf in order. 93 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:39.800 No strays, she reminded everyone in her clipped tone for 94 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:42.800 the fourth time in as many days. Mister Ellis, the 95 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:46.160 maintenance supervisor, combat butts impossible laugh joined us for lunch 96 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:49.199 that afternoon, arms folded as we split exlid sand, which 97 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:52.319 is behind the new periodicals. He was adamant every node 98 00:04:52.439 --> 00:04:54.800 joined and shelf in this place of catalog the better 99 00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:57.920 than my own. Liver East wore, pulling blueprints from his pocket. 100 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:00.000 If there's a shelf that escapes me, I'll eat my 101 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:04.120 I had the regulars drifted past. Missus Callaghan, local historian 102 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:06.600 and relentless Dambi is a body with her pointed questions 103 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:09.519 about fire insurance and a running commentary about the library's 104 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:13.160 hidden gems. Two university students commandeered a table in marine 105 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:16.199 ecology books and the laptops, barricading themselves from the world. 106 00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:19.920 Most endearing was Leo, a curly headed, solemn child who 107 00:05:19.959 --> 00:05:23.519 explored the quietest library corners, chronicling discoveries, un crumpled outless 108 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:26.519 pages and drawing maps of nowhere in particular. Yet even 109 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:29.879 among such characters and routines, library kept as private mischief. 110 00:05:30.399 --> 00:05:33.279 This is the nature of all places. Cabinets discovered behind 111 00:05:33.319 --> 00:05:36.439 temporary walls catalogs gone missing for decades, only to turn 112 00:05:36.519 --> 00:05:39.439 up in the wrong drawer. Still, furniture shifts and shelf 113 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:42.199 migrations followed a logic I trusted to the logic of caretakers, 114 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:45.879 blueprints and occasional emergency patch jobs. Part of me, the 115 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.920 archivist part, assumed my unfamiliar shelf had simply been moved 116 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:52.040 during the previous month's renovations, or borrowed from another department 117 00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:54.720 and left adrift. But as I poured over four plans 118 00:05:54.759 --> 00:05:58.199 in the break room, shelf had no mashing dimensions, no listing, 119 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:01.680 no paperwork. Wasn't even of a style consistent with our 120 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:04.879 last two furniture orders, which a mess harrow personally oversaw 121 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:08.000 like a hound with a scent. Strange but not impossible, 122 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:11.959 I thought, Still skeptical, libraries are naturally cluttered with the misremembered, 123 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.839 the nearly cataloged. A shelf out of place was only 124 00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:17.199 the gentlest of mysteries, delightful, in fact, for those with 125 00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:21.199 patience in time. Libraries I always believed were not only 126 00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:23.879 stews of record, but custodians of the almost forgotten, stray 127 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:28.000 musings and unfinished projects, half written lives. Maybe every library 128 00:06:28.079 --> 00:06:31.319 is one shelf am rulely, unremarked, easy to overlook, waiting 129 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:34.160 for someone to care enough to give it meaning asterisk. 130 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:37.079 After a brief lunch, I resolved to settle the question 131 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:40.959 of the unpredictable shelf. Procedure was my comfort, so I returned, 132 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:44.240 armed spiral note, bad fresh pencil, and a smartphone whose 133 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:47.759 camera was my concession to modernity. The stack weighted in silence, 134 00:06:48.439 --> 00:06:50.959 despite the muffled sounds of school children and the sonorous 135 00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:53.519 creak of Massess Callahan in the reading room. The genealogy 136 00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:56.079 when felt sealed off from the library's more obvious rhythms, 137 00:06:56.680 --> 00:06:59.360 I found the shelf precisely as I had left it, unremarkable, 138 00:06:59.399 --> 00:07:03.399 bran wood, five shelves, roughly chest high. I painstakingly jotted 139 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:07.759 down two prominent titles, one North Wind, South Water, Tidal Legends, 140 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:12.000 two The Somnambulists Almanac. For good measure, I photographed the 141 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:14.560 shelf from three angles, one straight on and two quarters, 142 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:17.480 making sure both our titles were in frame. The shelf 143 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:20.839 looked ordinary, bordering on plane. I sudden cough echoed from 144 00:07:20.839 --> 00:07:23.600 somewhere beyond periodicals, and I tapped my notepad into my 145 00:07:23.639 --> 00:07:26.720 cardigan and left for a quick errand checking the administrative closets. 146 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:29.800 Sir Felder had finally been replaced, as mister Ellis had promised. 147 00:07:30.439 --> 00:07:33.959 Fifteen maybe twenty minutes later, I returned notes in hand 148 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:36.879 and determination narrowed to a point. There was the shelf, 149 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:40.879 only now the arrangement had changed. Instead of northwind southward, 150 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:43.360 I found a hefty bay volume entitled Collections from the 151 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:46.720 Skyward Border. The Somnambulist Almanac was nowhere to be seen, 152 00:07:46.839 --> 00:07:49.279 instead the Narrowest River, a book I had never entered 153 00:07:49.319 --> 00:07:53.040 in our regional catalog. Mild irritation blooming, I double checked 154 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:56.720 my notepad. The titles had changed. Instead of the earl 155 00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.600 Air Inventory, my only being handwriting now recorded collections from 156 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:01.759 the skyrodred Border in the Narrowest River, as if I 157 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:05.079 had never written anything else. My pencil, too, bore the 158 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.639 smudges of recent writing flaking off onto yellowed paper in 159 00:08:07.639 --> 00:08:11.079 a way I couldn't recall. Making restless, I snapped another picture. 160 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:15.000 At first, the gallery displayed three recent images of the shelf, too, 161 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:17.000 with the beige book, one with none of these titles. 162 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:20.399 But the first photo, which should have shown northward south water, 163 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:22.839 now appeared to show a pale Mortel volume, the House 164 00:08:22.879 --> 00:08:26.319 with too many windows, A scroll pulse quickening just a little. 165 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:28.360 Then cross referenced the notebook as one does when the 166 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:31.560 brain pulls its own little pranks. But no, the notebook 167 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:33.879 made no mention of the earlier titles, and the camera 168 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:36.559 roll sequence was subtly out of order. Time stamps and change, 169 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:40.240 but imagiciite, am I tired? Have I skipped lunch one 170 00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:43.879 too many times? I muttered annoy in sharpening to something else. 171 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:47.039 I resolved to test the shelf, not just with memory, 172 00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:50.519 but with hard evidence, titles, written, photographs matched. On my 173 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:52.720 way back to the front desk, I paused notebook in 174 00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:55.399 hand and found a mess harrow behind the counter. Sorting 175 00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:59.240 returns a mess harrow. Do you know if the shelf 176 00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:01.960 in Genetics between the County Histories and Aquaculture was moved 177 00:09:01.960 --> 00:09:04.840 in the last few weeks? I tried to sound casual. 178 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:08.600 She peered at me, clipped, efficient yet kind. That shelf's 179 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:11.159 always a headache. Whoever tries to catalog that area ends 180 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:13.440 up double chev in books. Those titles, at least the 181 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:17.600 ones I remember, never staypo is that normal? I pressed? 182 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:20.159 She gave me a sideling glance, as if I dust 183 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:22.919 whether the sky was always the color in this wing. 184 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:25.720 Patrons tend to miss Plaster's volumes. I recommend you let 185 00:09:25.799 --> 00:09:28.039 it be. It's not worth the trouble, Margaret, did you 186 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:31.159 want help with something else? Her dismissal wasn't rude, but 187 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:34.759 it was absolute. For once, I found myself fitching for 188 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:38.399 a reason stronger than bureaucracy, the contradiction books and shelf 189 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:41.240 that denied any fixed record to struck a quiet, insistent note. 190 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:44.039 There was a secret year, not only of shifting stacks, 191 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:46.720 but of memory. It's lugh. I made up my mind. 192 00:09:46.759 --> 00:09:49.039 I would observe catalog and prove what I saw, or 193 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:53.120 else drive myself gently mad, trying astersk. Over the next 194 00:09:53.159 --> 00:09:56.279 three days, I returned to the shelf every afternoon for 195 00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:59.840 segure became ritual. First I wrote titles and pencil this 196 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:01.720 times grudged on a sheet a place in a siled 197 00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:05.480 library envelope. Then I made a diagram shelf height, book placement, 198 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:07.679 color of space, and the odd notches in the woods grain. 199 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:10.159 I set the library scanner to copy the first two 200 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:13.000 visible spined. I even checked bockets now matched any in 201 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:16.200 our system. Every method I'd honed in my career as librarian. 202 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:20.840 I used itomization cross for referencing duplicate copies. Yet each 203 00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:24.600 morning my coppies, lists and photos never matched. There was 204 00:10:24.600 --> 00:10:28.120 always a subtle alteration. The envelope occasionally contained my notes 205 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:30.720 in past elpenne, though I had only ever used playing grapha. 206 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:34.080 My diagrams sometimes described books with colors that could only 207 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:37.720 exist behind one's eyelids. Even the scanner auver changed a 208 00:10:37.799 --> 00:10:40.600 manuscript labeled The storm At Turned Shoal in elegant cursive, 209 00:10:40.759 --> 00:10:43.240 replaced by Nuon with a slim pamphlet, The Psychology of 210 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:46.960 Hidden Shives. The other staff carried on nonplust as though 211 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:50.240 routine anomalies were simply part of the environment. I tried 212 00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:53.159 mister Alice, catching him between replacement of a sticky window 213 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:56.120 latch and tightening a creaking stair. You've been here yours, 214 00:10:56.200 --> 00:10:59.440 mister Alice. That shelf in the genealogy corner. Do you 215 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:03.600 recall anything about when it was installed? He squinted, arms 216 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:06.519 folded that one. I'd swear it's been around, been here 217 00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:09.519 twenty one years. Me odd belt, not walnut or birch, 218 00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:11.799 more like well, I camp in it never needed repair. 219 00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:13.679 Feels a little out of time with the rest, but 220 00:11:13.759 --> 00:11:17.159 old libraries always have strays. Does anything about it seem 221 00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:22.159 off a shrug, more wary than impatient. Sometimes you get 222 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:24.639 a shelf that looks different, moves quiet as someone need 223 00:11:24.840 --> 00:11:27.639 one of life's small mysteries. Nothing to fret over, Margaret, 224 00:11:27.639 --> 00:11:30.879 don't go losing sleep. Dismissed again, I went hunting for 225 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:34.919 corroboration following the thread two people instead of paper. Missus 226 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:38.039 Callaghan caught near the microfilm reader pursed her lips in 227 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:42.480 that puckered conspiratorial way. Sometimes they rediscover volumes I never knew. 228 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:44.360 I missed dear Believe covered thing, a wild ear in 229 00:11:44.399 --> 00:11:46.320 salt mush. Found it just last year. Ride in that 230 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:49.480 same stack, tucked beside a volume of lost property deats, beautiful, 231 00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:51.840 bitter sweet memoir. I tried borrowing it, but it always 232 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:54.080 found its way back to that shelf. Haven't seen it since. 233 00:11:54.159 --> 00:11:55.960 More's a pity. If you find it, let me know. 234 00:11:56.679 --> 00:11:58.840 I can't seem to find any record of it, I hedged, 235 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.960 She laughed, fluffing her dark hair. Margaret, Not every book 236 00:12:03.080 --> 00:12:05.480 likes being found. Some things only ever exist where you 237 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:08.919 least expect them. Next, I found Leo of the Small Explorer. 238 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:12.120 He sat tapped behind a ford of chairs and encyclopedias. 239 00:12:12.360 --> 00:12:14.559 Niece pulled his chest, throwing squigly maps on the back 240 00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:17.879 of expired registration slips. Leo, did you ever find a 241 00:12:17.879 --> 00:12:20.480 special book on that shelf over by the big blue map? 242 00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:24.600 He nodded at once, eyes wide and solemn. When I 243 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:26.639 never saw anywhere else a book with popbouts that move 244 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:28.679 when you turn a page. It does your dream for you, 245 00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:30.720 I told mom. But when I try to find it again, 246 00:12:30.759 --> 00:12:33.440 it's always different. Sometimes it's gone, but I wait and 247 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:36.759 it comes back in new colors. Did you check any out? 248 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:39.960 He shook his head, teeth worrying at his lower lip. 249 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:42.639 Nobody else can find them when I talk about it, 250 00:12:42.679 --> 00:12:44.799 he even the cover changes it, Not like the library 251 00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:49.039 books Marm gets from me. In each conversation, contradictions piled up. 252 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:53.159 Missus Callahan's favorite never matched Leo's, nor did either coincide 253 00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:56.639 with the titles I'd managed to capture. However, fleetingly, everyone 254 00:12:56.720 --> 00:12:59.000 seemed to have their own precise story, but no two 255 00:12:59.039 --> 00:13:02.519 stories aligned. If I mentioned any of my own observed titles, 256 00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:06.120 I was met with bemeuse shrugs, seeking records all and knew. 257 00:13:06.279 --> 00:13:09.360 I checked our circulation logs, the soft ware kepp no 258 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:11.480 day to not even place hold of barquereads of the shelves. 259 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:15.000 Books Yet esparted here and their initials beside shelf codes 260 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:17.399 that only made senses. Some one had returned a borrowed book. 261 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.279 My attempts to create a digital log were stammied by 262 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.759 minor malfunctions. Pages froze, records ere erased, and timed stamp 263 00:13:23.799 --> 00:13:26.720 skewed days or months out of sync. In frustration, I 264 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:30.159 thought to consult the library security feeds. The system kept 265 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:33.559 constant silent watch over all entries and exits. Pointing a 266 00:13:33.559 --> 00:13:35.759 camera a recent requirement of the insurance office. Down the 267 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:39.639 genealogy corridor, I queued up footage from three separate afternoons, 268 00:13:39.919 --> 00:13:42.240 watching the shelf as the suns laid across the carpet 269 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:45.799 each time the observed hour drifted. In one clip, two 270 00:13:45.799 --> 00:13:48.120 students paused near the shelf, reaching for a book with 271 00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:51.120 a glittering black dust jacket. In another, the shelf was 272 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:54.039 dominated by slam on marked white volumes. The same interval 273 00:13:54.039 --> 00:13:55.919 on a third day showed a spiral bam bram book 274 00:13:55.960 --> 00:14:00.639 with luminous pages, occasionally a fleeting, unidentifiable binding. Shit shimmered interview, 275 00:14:00.679 --> 00:14:04.600 sometimes opaque, sometimes almost translucent. I felt a rising pulse 276 00:14:04.600 --> 00:14:07.559 of something not quite anxiety, more like intellectual suspense, culling 277 00:14:07.559 --> 00:14:10.200 in my chest. This was no longer the quiet mystery 278 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:13.279 of missplaced books. The shelf, it seemed, could not be 279 00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:16.960 fixed in memory, record or even digital evidence. My own 280 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:19.559 lists and diagrams held as little permanence as Leo's shifting 281 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:22.360 pop up tails. Here was something deeper than even the 282 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:25.080 catalogous sense of order could reach. The shelf denied any 283 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:29.679 stable account. Every attempt by person, device, or recollection swept 284 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:33.000 the evidence aside as easily as a rolling to hide asters. 285 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:36.759 By a late Thursday, I appended my own routines. If 286 00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:40.200 logic wouldn't serve, perhaps careful presents might. I reserved my 287 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:42.960 next slot for simple observation, no less, no cameras, just 288 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:46.480 watching in the hush of late afternoon. At first, nothing happened. 289 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:48.720 The shelf was as peaceful as a pure in an 290 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:51.759 empty church. I ran my finger along the wood grain, 291 00:14:51.879 --> 00:14:55.720 tracing surface scratches and unusual curves. The books arranged themselves 292 00:14:55.720 --> 00:14:59.039 as usual, nondescript, their titles half familiar and entirely resistant 293 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:02.440 to permanence. Still, the oddest feeling crept in, like dejah 294 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.399 rouses bought by old photographs rediscovered in a stranger's house. 295 00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:07.799 As I studied a shelf, I began to feel a 296 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:11.679 kind of gentle trespass. The sensation was neither iry nor threatening, 297 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:14.559 but subtly intimate, as though the shelf were reflecting something 298 00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:18.159 back at me, my own memories, perhaps nudged the foreground 299 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:21.600 by its peculiar behavior. Watching the title's chine, I found 300 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:24.440 myself thinking of the unfinished project planned but never begun. 301 00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:27.480 Sketches left in odd note books, guarden guise from years 302 00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:29.360 when I had hoped to revive the long dead library, 303 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:33.720 roofed up beds, A certain anthologized handred in collection floated back. 304 00:15:33.960 --> 00:15:37.240 My mother's poems darted with corrections which she never finished 305 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:40.080 before her voice faded. A press flower tucked in paper, 306 00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:43.559 a poem half recalled tiredness and wonder mingled as I looked, 307 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:45.120 And this time the book at the edge of the 308 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:46.799 shelf caught at my eye. A faded dear tour in 309 00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:50.519 the smaller sea title triggered a sap of recognition. I 310 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:53.039 had invented such a phrase at nine years old, writing 311 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:54.960 in my childish hand at a summer camp, hoping to 312 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.360 write ground adventures. The memory fell through me, vivid as 313 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:00.679 the salt brine on my tongue of summers cris bare, 314 00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:03.600 in the scent of rain on canvass. Yet here it was, 315 00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:06.960 in my adult handwriting on a binding aged almost to anonymity. 316 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:10.559 Was it possible part of me rebelled? Surely I must 317 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:13.039 have misremembered, or perhaps the shelf simply dredged up a 318 00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:16.519 half forgotten title from some unremarkable database injury, And yet 319 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:21.240 the sense of recognition was intimate, nearly invasive. I reached out, hesitant, now, 320 00:16:21.320 --> 00:16:23.320 feeling a quiver at the border between the russal and 321 00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:26.840 the emotional. Untouched the cover. My finger tips brushed the edge, 322 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:28.840 and the memory welled up. The shame of hiding you 323 00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:30.960 and finished ideas, the pride and longing to see them, 324 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:34.000 made reel. I scanned the shelf, and again the visible 325 00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:37.440 title seemed personal, but not all mine. One promised a 326 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:39.519 botanical guide to the garden I newly designed for the 327 00:16:39.519 --> 00:16:42.240 western courtyard, a project I left behind thirty years ago, 328 00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:45.399 another book of Friends with Adventures in New England was 329 00:16:45.399 --> 00:16:47.600 the working title of a novel my closest friend dreamed 330 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:49.960 of writing before she died, sketched out in letters to me, 331 00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:53.039 never committed to paper. Shiveral less of fear than of 332 00:16:53.039 --> 00:16:56.320 ore ran through me. The shelf was some out, responding 333 00:16:56.360 --> 00:16:57.840 not only to the world as it was, but to 334 00:16:57.879 --> 00:16:59.879 the fragments of hopes and sorrows, half lived, half from 335 00:16:59.879 --> 00:17:03.440 my on, never realized at all, My understanding shifted, the 336 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:07.519 mystery transformed. The shelf was no longer an anomaly of cataloging, 337 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:10.519 nor merely a trick of memory or diagnosed library magic. 338 00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:13.480 The real question surface not as what books are these, 339 00:17:13.480 --> 00:17:16.559 but rather whose books are the ease and echoing in 340 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:19.680 that question and unsettling, exhilarating notion. Perhaps the shelf was 341 00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:22.920 reflecting the private, unwritten rooms of our lives, recording the invisible, 342 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:26.319 the uncapped, the almost possible. Had the others too seen 343 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:29.680 fragments of themselves made external in these books? Was every 344 00:17:29.759 --> 00:17:32.319 visitor conjuring not the past, but they imagine history as 345 00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:36.480 they never finished. I lingered breath, suspended between fascination and humility, 346 00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:39.759 and let go of the desire for perfect record keeping asterisk. 347 00:17:40.359 --> 00:17:43.839 That sense of personal collector strangers grew stronger with every conversation, 348 00:17:44.039 --> 00:17:47.200 every attempt to press the shelf for its secrets. Determined 349 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:49.640 to test the limits of the phenomenon as scheduled and formal, 350 00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:52.680 almost accidental interviews, quiet chats in the reading room, side 351 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:56.799 conversations at the returns desk. Missus Callahan, when pressed again, 352 00:17:56.920 --> 00:17:59.839 described the blue memory, and even more detail, reading passages 353 00:17:59.839 --> 00:18:02.519 from memory of a waiting intssult marsh. After the flood receded, 354 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:07.200 no trace, Leo became animated, accounting a boo whose illustrations 355 00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:10.079 pulled you inside until you woke up laughing. His description 356 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:13.319 differed each time we talked, never matching mine or anyone else's. 357 00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:17.039 Our two marine ecology students, mir and Taric offered their 358 00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:20.759 own accounts. Mirror remembered shyly a thin book containing all 359 00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:22.640 the names we never gave the waless illiss written in 360 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:24.759 the block print of her own childhood journal, with field 361 00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:27.319 sketches that matched her teenage notebooks, but not a single 362 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:31.039 known taxonomic text. Tarik laughed, but then confessed he'd once 363 00:18:31.079 --> 00:18:33.039 glimpsed a collection of letters, each and the voice of 364 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:36.000 a belove grandparent, written in a s bidery looping script, 365 00:18:36.079 --> 00:18:39.480 though both grandparents had passed away before he could read. Later, 366 00:18:39.640 --> 00:18:42.680 I confided my experience to Ms Harrow herself, who was 367 00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:46.200 for showing return periodicals. Oddest thing I used to imagine 368 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:49.400 publishing a catalog of whether patterns as a schoolgirl. Not 369 00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:52.400 serious enough for thesis work, so I bendoned it. But 370 00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:54.240 that book or something like it turned up on the 371 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:58.039 genealogy shelf last month. Exact description. I still can't explain it. 372 00:18:58.599 --> 00:19:01.640 But then libraries always corners like that, places where old 373 00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:05.480 idea astray. More delicately, I broached the pattern. Have you 374 00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:08.160 ever noticed that everyone's book seems personal? Not just aught, 375 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:11.119 but impossibly private. She raised a brow, and for once 376 00:19:11.160 --> 00:19:14.559 her briskness softened. Perhaps the building picks up things that matter. 377 00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:17.920 We keep thinking of libraries as static, perfect systems, but 378 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:21.160 maybe they collect more than we intend. One rainy morning, 379 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:24.000 the student mere sat beside me, half embarrassed, half delighted, 380 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.359 and confided. My friend says, it's like the shelf knows 381 00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:28.599 what you wish you could read. I don't believe in ghosts, 382 00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:30.839 but I've noticed to one of her amantus. Those books 383 00:19:30.839 --> 00:19:33.480 feel comforting, familiar, like when you read an old letter 384 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:36.839 from someone ne miss. During my next observation, I noticed 385 00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:39.279 that while the books remain physically intangible, never staying in 386 00:19:39.319 --> 00:19:42.519 handful long, never checking out, formerly pittrons left the area lighter, 387 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:46.279 more focused, sometimes with a quiet, secret smile. Cat org 388 00:19:46.359 --> 00:19:49.599 lobs refused all pattern The books never registered, yet the 389 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:52.519 checkout sheets sometimes bore initials, matched only by faint, short 390 00:19:52.519 --> 00:19:55.319 lived memory. Volunteers who shelved in the wing admitted to 391 00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:58.640 seeing strange titles, but rarely dwelt on them. They pass 392 00:19:58.680 --> 00:20:03.000 through the system like background radiation, present, persistent yet fundamentally elusive. 393 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:06.200 In the security office that Friday, I convinced mister Ellis 394 00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:09.359 to run side by side video comparisons three days, one hour, 395 00:20:09.480 --> 00:20:13.160 same angle, side by side. The footage not only displayed 396 00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:15.960 differing books and covers, but one recording even briefly shared 397 00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:19.039 a title in mirrored script and readable disappearing between framed. 398 00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:22.319 A pattern emerged, not of gramre or origin, but of 399 00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:26.359 emotional entitlement everyone encountered when honest described titles they longed for, 400 00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:30.319 wandered about, or never dared to complete. Chronology fails, physical 401 00:20:30.359 --> 00:20:34.000