WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:09.039 My first day volunteering at Saint Isidore's Public Library, I 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:12.759 arrived early, too early, really, thirty minutes ahead of the 3 00:00:12.759 --> 00:00:16.719 head librarian unlocking the side door, Anxious in that charmingly 4 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:20.800 undirected way retirement brings. The library had not quite shaken 5 00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:24.039 off its morning chill. The marble floored century old foy 6 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:29.120 glossed blue beneath stubbornly dusty windows. Dust motes twirled in light, 7 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:33.799 slanting across a table still dressed in yesterday afternoon's leaflets. 8 00:00:34.759 --> 00:00:37.719 The city noise and postal schedule that shaped forty two 9 00:00:37.799 --> 00:00:41.039 years of my life had faded, replaced by the imagined 10 00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:44.520 hush of a climate controlled archive. That hush didn't quite 11 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:48.880 exist here. Scent Isidors contained more than enough eccentricity to 12 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:53.000 disrupt anyone's notion of order. Rooms that shifted their purposes, 13 00:00:53.399 --> 00:00:56.320 Stacks that seemed to lean into corners you never remembered, 14 00:00:56.759 --> 00:01:00.719 vents sighing at odd intervals. Still, I was determined to 15 00:01:00.759 --> 00:01:04.680 find some comfort in the archiving work the library, if 16 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:08.760 chaotic was a system, and systems are at heart knowable. 17 00:01:09.719 --> 00:01:13.359 Beneath the faded directory, I found a crate waiting, scrawled 18 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:17.879 with the comical label lost and unlovely archive filler wallis. 19 00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:22.640 The other afternoon volunteer, a retired church organist, had already 20 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:26.599 left cursive notes of complaint taped to several boxes utterly 21 00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:31.480 unlabeled last shelve two thousand three. It seemed to my 22 00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:34.920 relief that the job was mostly about tracing the past 23 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:39.359 through paper trails, tracking author and title from circulation cards 24 00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:43.319 to newer digitized records, and wrestling them all into an order. 25 00:01:43.599 --> 00:01:48.599 The library's stubborn architecture only partly accepted, as the clock 26 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.599 struck twelve basement sunlight drowsily bled across the yellow in 27 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:57.000 card files and made everything feel briefly historic. Many of 28 00:01:57.040 --> 00:01:59.959 the books held that particular musty aura of small truck 29 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.040 I amph given up for lost, only to have survived 30 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:06.159 another round in the dark. I was sorting the final 31 00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:09.520 crate by call number when I noticed something that simply 32 00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:15.039 didn't belong. Wedged between two battered mystery anthologies, likely untouched 33 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:18.120 in a decade, sat a copy of Asterisk Great Tales 34 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:21.319 of the River Valley Asterisk. Its jacket was the very 35 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:25.240 bright Teal Editions and Isidor's ordered just three years prior, 36 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:28.919 with the spine label typed in Arrand's awkwardly exacting style. 37 00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:35.159 More strikingly, the book looked uncannily pristine, crisp pages, jacket smooth, 38 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:39.360 no evidence of wear beyond the factory creased edge. The 39 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:42.599 computer system in my log still listed Great Tales as 40 00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:47.199 loaned due thirteen days from now. I remembered very clearly 41 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:50.960 that Missus Costello, ever the chatty, loyal patron, had checked 42 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:54.479 it out on Sunday. She delighted in tales of local 43 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:58.240 water and muddy heroes, promising me herself that she'd need 44 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:00.879 the book for weeks to come with read aloud to 45 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:07.000 her grandchildren. Planned And yet here it was, untouched, undoubtedly present. 46 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:10.000 I hovered a moment with the unease that comes when 47 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:12.520 a system's error is simply too good to be true. 48 00:03:13.159 --> 00:03:16.800 Was there a lost duplicate, a cataloging error. Was it 49 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:19.439 some left of her from shelving case of a novice 50 00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:24.199 volunteer absent mindedly returning a copy out of Habit. I 51 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.680 set the volume aside, partly to avoid the embarrassment of 52 00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:31.039 reshelving a book that wasn't due for some time, and 53 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:33.840 partly from the intuition that the situation wasn't just a 54 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:38.280 simple mistake. I'd learned, through endless route adjustments as a 55 00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:41.800 mail carrier that a misplaced item always had a story. 56 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:45.960 Sometimes the strangest piece of mail wound up precisely where 57 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:49.159 it shouldn't, and tracing it revealed more about the sender 58 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:54.400 and recipient than any address label. That same afternoon, as 59 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:56.719 I was returning a stack of gardening books to their 60 00:03:56.759 --> 00:03:59.599 slightly sloped shelf. At the back of reference, my hand 61 00:03:59.639 --> 00:04:03.479 brushed a battered copy of the Midwestern Perennial Almanac, out 62 00:04:03.479 --> 00:04:07.240 of print edition nineteen fifty seven. It was some bleached, 63 00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:10.639 with pages warped, as if having survived many humid summers. 64 00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:14.680 According to Wallace's hand written shelf list and confirmed by 65 00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:17.519 my own computer check, this book was out on a 66 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:21.759 long term loan due back in three weeks. The borrower, 67 00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:25.319 a local whose name I recognized, was reportedly using it 68 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:28.759 to plan a complicated back yard project. Yet the book 69 00:04:28.839 --> 00:04:33.439 was absolutely present, clearly reshelved with care. I stared at 70 00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:37.079 its circulation stamp and matched it to the log out 71 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:40.360 not due until the end of the month. Twice in 72 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:44.319 one day. Was to me no longer chance back at 73 00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:48.800 my little staging desk. I started a private log title 74 00:04:48.879 --> 00:04:52.439 Great Tales of the River Valley. Check out Missus Costello 75 00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:58.680 expected return thirteen days. Location archive shelf CEA eleven condition 76 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:05.040 perfect title Midwestern Perennial Almanac nineteen fifty seven. Check out J. 77 00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:10.120 Mendes due twenty one days. Location reference shelf L one 78 00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:16.240 condition worn but in place. All systems postal or bibliographic 79 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:20.920 leech unpredictability over time, but rarely did books appear to 80 00:05:20.959 --> 00:05:25.399 return themselves. That night, as slate clouds pressed against my 81 00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:28.920 kitchen window, I reviewed the rest of my unshelved crate 82 00:05:29.240 --> 00:05:33.040 and wondered, not for the first time, what other stories 83 00:05:33.079 --> 00:05:37.399 the basement kept folded in its shadows. Retirement, I had 84 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:41.319 assured my son after the farewell party, meant finally settling 85 00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:45.120 into other people's orders. I had meant it, but perhaps 86 00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:47.600 some part of me missed the subtle sense of anomaly, 87 00:05:47.959 --> 00:05:51.120 the joy you get from putting something quietly right, or 88 00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:54.720 noticing that the world around you rarely stays sorted. For 89 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:59.600 long Monday afternoons, settled into a ritual, Wallace would bring 90 00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:03.279 thermos of sweet tea and misremember the schedule. Aran would 91 00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:06.399 bring a dry wit and a determination not to be impressed. 92 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.839 Miss Chen would drift through the stacks, her arms always 93 00:06:09.879 --> 00:06:13.720 full of books, in various directions. The library staff, in 94 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:17.639 their small ways, echo the building, every inch built up 95 00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:22.560 through generational quirks and small worker aunts. Arran runs technical 96 00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:26.560 services with almost religious precision. There are rules and then 97 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:30.199 there are traditions, he said my second day, demonstrating the 98 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:33.000 gentle friction at the heart of the library. He has 99 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:35.600 the look of someone always about to finish an argument, 100 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:39.240 but with kindness behind it, eyes darting to my neatly 101 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:43.800 compiled returns. Scent Isidor's is impossible to get lost in 102 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:46.920 because it never lets you go far if it likes 103 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:51.279 you anyway. His laughter echoed off the marble floor in 104 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:55.319 a way that was oddly reassuring, as though familiarity itself 105 00:06:55.519 --> 00:06:59.839 offered a kind of map. Miss Chen, the pragmatic head librarian, 106 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:03.800 walk the line between warmth and brisk competence. Slightly shorter 107 00:07:03.879 --> 00:07:06.639 than me, and always in bright cardigans. She seemed to 108 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:10.399 transact half the day in gentle admonitions to readers, crinkling 109 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:14.199 new jackets, to staff relabeling with the wrong pen. This 110 00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:17.160 place has a habit, she told me once of putting 111 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:19.879 things back where you least expect, but just when you're 112 00:07:19.879 --> 00:07:23.680 about to need them, books turn up, she added, exactly 113 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.879 where you need them, not a moment before, not a 114 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:30.560 moment late. She laughed after saying this the way some 115 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:33.199 one does when they mean to signal just an old 116 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:38.240 woman's nonsense, but perhaps not quite nonsense. The regulars formed 117 00:07:38.279 --> 00:07:42.920 their own archipelago of routines. Missus Costello, whose plastic rain 118 00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:46.120 hat marked her presence in any season, never left without 119 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:51.040 three thick novels and a spicy rumination on her neighbor's roses. Jamie, 120 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:57.399 a university student, trailed stacks of monographs on migration and memory. Polite, serious, 121 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:02.560 always hungry for a reading list. Mister booth Town historian 122 00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:06.800 and self appointed critic of the modern tendency toward mechanized 123 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:09.759 disorder bore the air of some one who had read 124 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:14.079 more than he'd lived and relished the imbalance. And Wallace 125 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:17.800 rumpled plaid, a voice permanently tinged with the minor key 126 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:21.199 chords of his former organist days, Prone to losing his 127 00:08:21.279 --> 00:08:24.160 own pen in the return slot, he voiced wild but 128 00:08:24.279 --> 00:08:28.759 harmless theories. The libraries alive you know it eats, overdue slips, 129 00:08:28.759 --> 00:08:32.320 and dreams in dust. It was I assumed, a way 130 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:35.320 to make the place feel less empty after his wife's passing, 131 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:39.519 But sometimes the notion clung to me. For my part, 132 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:43.000 I found a kind of pleasure in tracing origins. All 133 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:48.360 those years walking postal roots, watching numbers, organizing stops, building 134 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:51.559 patterns from the jumbled streets taught me that meaning is 135 00:08:51.639 --> 00:08:54.200 hidden in the details, in the way a code or 136 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:57.000 a sticker tells you more about people than any grand 137 00:08:57.039 --> 00:09:01.240 story could. So when systems didn't quite add up, when 138 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:04.159 a date on a checkout's slip disagreed with the computer, 139 00:09:04.679 --> 00:09:07.159 or when the handwriting on a decade's old book plate 140 00:09:07.399 --> 00:09:10.720 matched some one still alive, I quietly added it to 141 00:09:10.799 --> 00:09:15.559 my growing file a librarian's impulses in a pensioner's hands. 142 00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:22.480 The library didn't just accumulate things. It accumulated oddities, genres, languages, editions, 143 00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:24.799 all salted in with the brick and marble of the 144 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:28.639 building's bones. A mislaid volume might go to ground for years, 145 00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:32.159 only to reappear perfectly filed, long after its absence had 146 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:35.159 become an injoke. People tolerated this as part of the 147 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:39.879 place's charm. Self correcting. Aaron called it wiping his glasses 148 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:44.519 or self replicating, depending which version of the catalog you trust. 149 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:48.879 He winked as if to say, don't take it too seriously. 150 00:09:49.799 --> 00:09:54.399 But I did. Order even in eccentric places mattered. I 151 00:09:54.559 --> 00:09:58.000 was still thinking of Asterisk Great Tales when Missus Costello 152 00:09:58.039 --> 00:10:02.120 appeared that Thursday evening, carting an armload of soup cans 153 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:06.000 and two grandsons, who eyed the children's section with competitive 154 00:10:06.039 --> 00:10:09.679 suspicion as they made for the reading nook. I found 155 00:10:09.720 --> 00:10:13.200 myself walking over, smiling before I'd thought through what I 156 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:18.639 wanted to say. Lovely book, Asterisk, River Valley, Asterisk, I 157 00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:21.639 ventured as she peeped into her tote for a rainsliquor. 158 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:27.159 Settling into it, she beamed, oh for certain, I'm hardly 159 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:30.399 through the first story. My hands keep wandering to mark 160 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:32.919 the parts for Sally. I meant to say, it was 161 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:35.720 the last copy, wasn't it. You're a dear for letting 162 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:39.879 me have it so long? I nodded an impulse struck. 163 00:10:40.360 --> 00:10:42.639 Could I see your copy? If you have it? I 164 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:45.600 tried to keep it casual, half amused. There was some 165 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:48.720 question about whether we had one more on shelf, but 166 00:10:48.840 --> 00:10:52.799 the catalog says otherwise. She gave me a look one 167 00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:56.639 a tolerant aunt might aim at a child's bad fib Then, bemused, 168 00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:59.759 she rummaged through her oversized purse and lifted out a 169 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:03.960 copy of astisk Great Tales. Her copy was unmistakably handled, 170 00:11:04.360 --> 00:11:07.720 corners creased, a slight tear at the dust jacket's rim. 171 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:10.799 A business card slipped between the last chapters, with don't 172 00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:14.480 forget the Ducks scribbled in her wide, looping hand. She 173 00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:18.279 grinned as her grandson barreled up to see story time privileges. 174 00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:22.480 You see, dear, it's not pristine, but it's all mine 175 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:24.960 for another week. But let me know if there's a 176 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:27.879 second Danny here will want it for his mother. Next. 177 00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:30.960 On my way back to the desk, Aaron and I 178 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:34.559 crossed paths by the staff computer. I mentioned what I'd done, 179 00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:38.519 framing it as idle curiosity. He was, as ever efficient, 180 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:42.799 checked the call number, cross examined the catalog, scanned all 181 00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:47.039 currant entries. There's no duplicate unless someone did a miraculous 182 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:51.200 rebinding and swapping with the same cereal and barcodede. I'd 183 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:55.480 eat my old dewy stamp before believing that. We compared 184 00:11:55.480 --> 00:11:59.480 the copy on shelf and Missus Costello's active loan, a perfect, 185 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:04.000 perhaps impossible one to one. Yet here both were one 186 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:07.720 living its borrowed life, the other patiently present, as if 187 00:12:07.720 --> 00:12:11.559 never having left at all. That afternoon, as I walked 188 00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:15.200 the rows for closing Midwestern Perennial Almanac, recurred to me 189 00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:19.159 the book's entry, still marked out, should have been available 190 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:23.080 only to its most recent borrower, mister Mendes. Late Friday, 191 00:12:23.399 --> 00:12:26.200 he showed up with overdue fines and a battered copy 192 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:29.639 in hand. I mustered the nerve to wonder aloud, did 193 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:34.159 you perhaps leave another behind? Seems yours has twin ambitions? 194 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:38.080 He seemed more amused than suspicious. He had, in fact 195 00:12:38.360 --> 00:12:41.720 written his name prominently in blue crayon on the inner jacket, 196 00:12:42.039 --> 00:12:44.440 a mark that did not appear in the copy I'd 197 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:49.320 found Rochelve days before. I compared the two briefly, clearly 198 00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:51.960 they were not the same physical book, or else one 199 00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:57.240 had been miraculously raised of coffee stains and annotations. That night, 200 00:12:57.320 --> 00:12:59.840 with the hush of the basement settling in, I form 201 00:12:59.879 --> 00:13:04.679 alyzed my experiment. I began a careful secret list books 202 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:10.000 apparently returned without human agency present, against system records, perfect 203 00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:14.960 or improved beyond expectation. The following week, stubborn as a 204 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:19.320 male route detour, I tracked each impossible return. There wasn't 205 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:22.480 a day in which the pattern repeated exactly. Sometimes it 206 00:13:22.519 --> 00:13:26.759 was a battered children's classic, improbably clean despite its owner's 207 00:13:26.759 --> 00:13:30.039 dog eared schoolbag. Sometimes an out of print cook book 208 00:13:30.039 --> 00:13:33.200 appeared in the stacks mere days after a frequent patron 209 00:13:33.279 --> 00:13:38.399 lamented its loss. I checked shelves, compared barcodes, sought signatures 210 00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:45.120 or marginalia. No evidence of typical duplication. Binding stamps, date slips, 211 00:13:45.159 --> 00:13:48.679 and call numbers all matched up. Each book had a 212 00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:51.159 reason to be prized. Some were ones that had been 213 00:13:51.240 --> 00:13:54.440 especially requested in the past, or remembered as beloved in 214 00:13:54.519 --> 00:13:58.840 town newsletters or annual Favorite Reads columns. Not a single 215 00:13:58.919 --> 00:14:03.039 returned volume, so far as I could see, was obscure, unloved, 216 00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:06.480 or unlikely to draw attention. Some had even been missing 217 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:10.039 for years. Asterisk the Inland Window reappeared in the main 218 00:14:10.120 --> 00:14:13.960 reading room, despite its lone history showing it marked lost 219 00:14:14.320 --> 00:14:18.000 since nineteen eighty two. Aaron waved it in the air 220 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:21.159 with a sense of comic frustration. It's as if the 221 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:24.480 building knows what you most want and arranges the rest. 222 00:14:25.559 --> 00:14:28.679 Yet there was no clear pattern by subject, genre, or 223 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:33.799 even circulation history. Miss Chen, when pressed, shrugs. Old libraries 224 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.679 are like rivers. Things settle in their place from time 225 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:40.559 to time. I stopped worrying about the logs years ago. 226 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:45.080 Her attitude seemed less dismissive than philosophical. Every system permitted 227 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:48.440 a certain gentle chaos, and perhaps the trick was learning 228 00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:53.159 to see beyond the catalog's limitations. Jamie, the student forever 229 00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:56.639 half buried behind an avalanche of journals, recalled never being 230 00:14:56.679 --> 00:14:59.600 unable to find a required reading, even if the system 231 00:14:59.639 --> 00:15:03.039 insists it was checked out. It's weird, they told me 232 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:05.879 one Wednesday. There's a rumor that if you need something 233 00:15:05.919 --> 00:15:08.960 badly enough for a project, it'll show up, maybe not 234 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:12.279 in the section you expect, but somewhere. They shrugged, as 235 00:15:12.279 --> 00:15:16.320 if to say, the world contains larger mysteries than textbook shelving. 236 00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:20.279 I caught myself wanting to believe them. Wallis, when I 237 00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:23.720 confided some of my findings, offered his usual slightly off 238 00:15:23.799 --> 00:15:27.559 kilter perspective, I once borrowed Asterisk, A Guide to local 239 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:30.919 Birds Asterisk years back, when I accidentally dropped it down 240 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:33.720 an old air vent, lost for good, I thought. I 241 00:15:33.799 --> 00:15:36.440 turned up months later, hoping not to be charged for it. 242 00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:38.960 There it was on the shelf, in perfect shape. But 243 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:42.120 when I peeked inside there was a note hatched before 244 00:15:42.159 --> 00:15:45.480 you looked for me nineteen seventy. The addition didn't even 245 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:49.679 come out till seventy eight. Mad, isn't it? He laughed, 246 00:15:49.919 --> 00:15:54.240 but then paused, as though the joke felt unfinished. Guided 247 00:15:54.279 --> 00:15:57.039 by habit as much as by mounting unease, I began 248 00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:01.320 digging deeper. I scoured the handwritten ledges, found at last 249 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:04.720 a hand written borrowing record from nineteen seventy two listing 250 00:16:04.759 --> 00:16:07.559 a loan of a volume Asterisk, the Children of Oak 251 00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:10.559 Hill Asterisk, with an accession number that would only make 252 00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:14.360 sense after the nineteen eighty eight library annex extension. The 253 00:16:14.360 --> 00:16:18.279 book I confirmed sat on shelf, now bearing both the 254 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:21.960 stamped classification from the old wing and the digital barcode 255 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:26.840 from the new impossible on its face. I double checked 256 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:30.519 stories with Aaron, who prided himself on being immune to whimsy. 257 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:34.799 I cataloged the new wings holdings myself, He said, no 258 00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:37.440 way a pre annex book has a post annex number 259 00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:40.360 unless some one is pulling the prank of the decade. 260 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.279 Only he would have the dedication for such a joke, 261 00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:46.480 and even he looked too rattled to be a convincing trickster. 262 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:51.679 With each new detail, my practical explanations clerical error, shelf 263 00:16:51.759 --> 00:16:55.879 duplicates a peculiar misreading of records, wilted under the growing 264 00:16:55.919 --> 00:16:59.639 shade of contradiction. These weren't just books turning up. They 265 00:16:59.639 --> 00:17:02.399 were books returning where when and as they were wanted, 266 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:05.880 or even before anyone had thought to want them. Sometimes 267 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:08.240 they had never been truly lost at all, or were 268 00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:11.599 marked found in moments when they should have belonged elsewhere, 269 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:16.240 or not existed. Yet, who was returning these books? Was 270 00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:20.079 any one? Was the system failing in ways I couldn't imagine, 271 00:17:20.279 --> 00:17:23.519 allowing losses to slip through cracks only to pop up 272 00:17:23.559 --> 00:17:27.440 again like undulating stones in a sluggish stream. Or was 273 00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:32.640 something else arranging the returns? Not someone but something. Retirement 274 00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:36.079 routines are sturdy, but the mind, freed from the daily 275 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:39.880 urgency of a postman's route, begins to turn more subtle. Corners. 276 00:17:40.440 --> 00:17:43.559 That Thursday, resigned to my growing lack of answers, I 277 00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:46.599 spent the afternoon watching the comings and goings of patrons, 278 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:52.480 half expecting to catch someone guiltily tucking found books into returns. Nothing. 279 00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:56.400 By closing the stack I had shelved earlier looked precisely 280 00:17:56.440 --> 00:17:59.319 as it had before, With two more of my impossible 281 00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:03.680 titlesquietly back in place, I resolved to test a theory. 282 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:06.799 The next morning, armed with print outs of the most 283 00:18:06.839 --> 00:18:10.519 mistlost books, I asked Aaron and Wallace to verify the list. 284 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:13.680 Have you ever seen asterisk Letters from Downriver in the 285 00:18:13.799 --> 00:18:17.400 last ten years? Aaron shook his head with practiced certainty. 286 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:23.039 Lost for ages, I flagged it missing in nine That afternoon, 287 00:18:23.359 --> 00:18:28.200 I selected one such book, Letters from Downriver Asterisk, noted 288 00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:31.519 missing since two thousand nine. It had become a legendary 289 00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:36.119 whole in several teachers reading curricula, the subject of recurring 290 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:39.640 laments at the annual Friends of the Library meeting, it 291 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:42.839 was the test case every one referenced but never hoped 292 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:46.880 to solve. After lunch, I strolled through the reading rooms, 293 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:50.519 pausing at each shelf. I mentioned the book aloud within 294 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:55.079 earshot of the regulars. Jamie, catching my eye, said, oh, 295 00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:58.359 I heard about that one, supposedly never been on shelf 296 00:18:58.400 --> 00:19:03.039 in my lifetime. Nothing remarkable happened at first, but after 297 00:19:03.079 --> 00:19:05.960 my shift, on a stray impulse, I doubled back to 298 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:10.079 the biography section. There, between two unrelated titles was a 299 00:19:10.119 --> 00:19:14.160 brown cloth bound copy. The spine, previously empty in every 300 00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:16.839 photo and log back to two thousand nine, now bore 301 00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:20.200 the legend letters from down River. I pulled it down 302 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:23.640 with careful hands, opening to the book plate, no sign 303 00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:27.200 of damage or mold pages, as if newly pressed, and 304 00:19:27.240 --> 00:19:31.519 with a sticker matching the original acquisition order. The catalog 305 00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:34.640 when I checked had just been updated. System log time 306 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:38.799 stamped checked in ten twelve. A m checked out missing 307 00:19:38.839 --> 00:19:44.240 since two thousand nine. Somehow both data points existed simultaneously 308 00:19:44.279 --> 00:19:49.240 lost and now unambiguously present. Aron, passing by with his 309 00:19:49.319 --> 00:19:52.799 own stacks, shook his head. You must have the magic touch. 310 00:19:53.160 --> 00:19:56.839 Maybe you should be in charge of inventory resurrection. His 311 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:00.799 tone was gently mocking, but the puzzled expression stayed with me. 312 00:20:01.880 --> 00:20:04.599 That night, I recorded the results and tried to avoid 313 00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:08.599 the easy answers. My field had been logistics, and logistics 314 00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:13.119 revolved around systems, error, paperwork, and a well documented human 315 00:20:13.200 --> 00:20:16.880 tendency to forget. But now the pattern eluded even the 316 00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:21.160 most cynical explanation. Books seemed to flow, not as I 317 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:25.400 previously believed, according to any one person's request, but along 318 00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.920 sum deeper tide. I could not shake the sense that 319 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:31.960 the library was not merely curved and crooked in its geography, 320 00:20:32.279 --> 00:20:35.119 but curved and crooked around the expectations and wishes of 321 00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:39.200 those inside it. Items appeared where and when enough longing 322 00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:43.279 or need built up. The formal record keeping, the precious 323 00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:46.400 stability I had always placed my faith in seemed not 324 00:20:46.519 --> 00:20:50.720 just occasionally faulty, but perhaps in a subtle way beside 325 00:20:50.759 --> 00:20:54.359 the real point. It was as if the library's logic 326 00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:57.839 was governed not by routines of the clock or inventories 327 00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:01.680 of the shelf, but by the lived, shared anticipation of 328 00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:06.640 its community, obtuse enough that even the catalog, however sophisticated, 329 00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:09.599 could only ever hope to describe it. After the fact 330 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:15.319 that realization, both unsettling and wondrous, shifted, something in me. 331 00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:19.519 I remembered the old adage posted in Saint Isidare's break 332 00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:23.240 room amid stern warnings about water rings on tables. The 333 00:21:23.279 --> 00:21:27.359 wise know the index, the patients seek the book. Now 334 00:21:27.480 --> 00:21:29.960 I began to see the half serious maxim as a 335 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:33.599 deeper hint at the true workings of the stacks. A catalog, 336 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:37.720 no matter how fastidious, trailed after the needs and desires 337 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:41.319 of the people who actually walked these aisles. I looked 338 00:21:41.319 --> 00:21:44.960 again at my list of impossible returns, the crisscross pattern 339 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.480 of borrowing, longing, finding, and forgetting. If the community's needs 340 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:54.039 shaped to availability, perhaps every returned book, every found volume, 341 00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:57.279 traced a secret map, not just of what was read, 342 00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:00.240 but of what was wished for. It suggests did a 343 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:04.079 kind of living memory built right into the shelves. I 344 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:08.039 closed my personal log book with slow, deliberate fingers. The 345 00:22:08.079 --> 00:22:11.079 world here was not merely formed by order, but by 346 00:22:11.079 --> 00:22:14.000 a persistent hope that what is most sought will in 347 00:22:14.119 --> 00:22:18.920 time always return. Maybe that was all the explanation sent 348 00:22:19.279 --> 00:22:23.559 Isidors needed. I returned to the desk in the echoing quiet, 349 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:27.640 my list of impossible returns folded neatly in my breast pocket, 350 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:30.799 Determined to press at the boundaries of this bewildering pattern 351 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:34.319 without tearing. What held it together, a sense had crept 352 00:22:34.359 --> 00:22:38.000 in impossible to ignore. Now that the library answered in 353 00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:42.039 some strange way to the silent chorus of expectation gathered 354 00:22:42.119 --> 00:22:45.720 under its roof, I believed this not as fact, but 355 00:22:45.799 --> 00:22:48.720 as the shape of things left unexplained by every other 356 00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:53.400 method I knew. Still belief required evidence, or, at the 357 00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:57.160 very least, witnesses. I felt the urge for company in 358 00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:01.359 my confusion. On Tuesday. I waited until the lunch lull. 359 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:05.000 The marble foy rang with the footsteps of two school children, 360 00:23:05.240 --> 00:23:08.960 and fell silent again. Miss Chen emerged from cataloging with 361 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:12.519 a slow grace. She reserved for her greatest acts of patience, 362 00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:15.880 stacking children's biographies with the weight of some one who 363 00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:19.000 had watched too many systems promise more than they delivered. 364 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:23.799 Arran followed, threading a trio of newly jacketed volumes across 365 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:27.319 the circulation desk. I approached them with a mix of 366 00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:30.319 apology and insistence. I need both of you for a 367 00:23:30.359 --> 00:23:33.119 puzzle when I can't let go. I laid out my 368 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:37.599 secret log, careful not to overstate, but neither masking the strangeness. 369 00:23:37.960 --> 00:23:41.119 I showed them the matching but inexplicable records A book 370 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:45.359 checked out and yet entirely self evidently present. Do you 371 00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:49.359 remember asterisk letters from down River being found? I asked 372 00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:53.960 Aaron quietly. He peered through his glasses, brow creasing as 373 00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:56.720 he considered the ledger and the stamped check in line. 374 00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:00.400 If I set aside, what's possible, he said, Then No, 375 00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:04.319 I never saw it actually returned. I assumed you did. 376 00:24:05.400 --> 00:24:08.119 Miss Chen led out a slow sigh. To my surprise, 377 00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:12.039 she didn't look puzzled or upset. If anything, her expression 378 00:24:12.079 --> 00:24:14.400 held the soft pride of some one proven right by 379 00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:17.960 something entirely unprovable. You've seen what we all see in 380 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:21.079 the end. This job in a place like Saint Isidore's 381 00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:23.880 means letting go of your grip on lists and letting 382 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:27.000 each book find its rest and return. That's not to 383 00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:30.279 say I don't value a tidy log, but here order 384 00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:34.279 isn't what it seems. Wallace overhearing from his post with 385 00:24:34.359 --> 00:24:37.640 the Tallies, chimed in. I once spent a week looking 386 00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:41.000 for a travel memoir, gave up. Two months later. It 387 00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:44.480 found me in my own return pile, the day before 388 00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:47.559 a grand daughter's birthday, who wanted that exact book to 389 00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:50.640 bring to show and tell. He shrugged, as if this 390 00:24:50.839 --> 00:24:56.720 registered no further curiosity. Isn't that just imperfect tracking? Arrun pressed, 391 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:00.519 reluctant to give in to any unmeasured mystery. We all 392 00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:04.200 know how physical returns can slip past the scanner. Maybe 393 00:25:04.200 --> 00:25:07.799 there's a system error, duplicate barcodes, or an old back 394 00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:12.400 up interfering. Miss Chen's lips quirked. Have you checked the 395 00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:16.359 card files for the same book across the years. I 396 00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:19.720 had not. I'd focused on the digital records. Their time 397 00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:23.319 stamp certainty felt like a shield. But later that afternoon 398 00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:26.240 I fetched the lacquered drawer of old check out slips 399 00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:30.000 and began matching hand written signatures, dates, and accessions with 400 00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:34.240 their corresponding barcodes. It was an exercise worthy of a scribe. 401 00:25:34.680 --> 00:25:38.000