WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.960 I retired from parks in recreation early, after thirty three 2 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.439 years of pruning hedges, organizing bird watching groups, and listening 3 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:14.560 to the gentle run of city fountains. Most people, when 4 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:17.120 they leave work talk about traveling, of finally taking up 5 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:21.320 a scattered hobby. I imagine myself learning chess, maybe replanting 6 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:23.839 the flower beds at our block's edge. But the week 7 00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:26.320 after my last ship, I found myself drifting past the 8 00:00:26.359 --> 00:00:29.480 City Library, a sunlit and hurried place i'd loved since childhood, 9 00:00:29.559 --> 00:00:31.039 less for its books than for the sense of peace 10 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:33.119 exceeded with all other parts of the city. Felt pressed 11 00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:36.000 and urgent. It was a nostalga that pulled me in, 12 00:00:36.359 --> 00:00:39.119 not at first. Maybe it was the quiet, the way 13 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:41.200 dust move through streaks of angled light, or how the 14 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:43.240 front desk always looked as though it belonged to every 15 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:46.560 decade since nineteen fifty two. Gloria the head library, and 16 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:48.479 spotted me at the entrance and waved in that easy, 17 00:00:48.679 --> 00:00:50.679 all knowing way of people who never forget a face 18 00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:53.520 you early, she called, though I hadn't actually signed up 19 00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:59.359 for anything yet. That's glory, affable, organized, conspiratorial. Within five minutes, 20 00:00:59.479 --> 00:01:01.799 sheared me filling out A volunteer slept with her favorite 21 00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:04.680 bluing pain, and before I entirely understood how, I was 22 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.159 given a badge and a card of children's books to roshelf. 23 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:09.400 I remember the weight of the first book, a battered 24 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.280 copy of Harald and the Purple Creon. I spun the cut, 25 00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:14.879 squeaky wheel toward the children's wing, following a path I 26 00:01:14.959 --> 00:01:18.000 knew from years of Saturday mornings as a boy. Back then, 27 00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:19.959 my friends and I would raise from the puppet stage 28 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:22.599 by the window to the far periodicals section. Skidding across 29 00:01:22.599 --> 00:01:25.239 the rays of sun, I could picture the old contest. 30 00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:27.359 The first one to touch the green volume of a 31 00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:29.599 World Wildlife won the right to pick the next story, 32 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:33.040 read aloud, placing Harold on the bottom shelf, I straightened 33 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:35.560 with a half smile and drifted toward the periodicals, ready 34 00:01:35.599 --> 00:01:39.480 to recreate myself of the old geography. The shelves, softly humming, 35 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:42.480 with anonymous voices hiding behind pages, guided me past a 36 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:45.480 row of encyclopedias. In a knotted carpeted reading nook, warm 37 00:01:45.519 --> 00:01:47.879 with the scent of old glue and spring sunlight, I 38 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.319 kept track of the familiar visual keys, A stained glass 39 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:52.760 arch set above the inner door, a wooden bench warped 40 00:01:52.760 --> 00:01:55.719 by decades of elbows and stories, a dangling corpboard covered 41 00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:58.959 in cheerful notices. But somewhere between the histories and the 42 00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:04.120 oversized alices, the walk began to feel stranger, longer, not interminable, 43 00:02:04.159 --> 00:02:06.000 not in a way that would frighten or even for straight, 44 00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:09.400 but unmistakably dilated. Stretched. The arch had spied from the 45 00:02:09.439 --> 00:02:11.840 children's eyle, glowed in the distance, colored glassis watch of 46 00:02:11.919 --> 00:02:14.639 lemon and emerald, Yet it never seen closer. No matter 47 00:02:14.719 --> 00:02:17.439 my pace, my footsteps, I could more time than should 48 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:20.800 be necessary, the pattern falling oddly with each shride. Maybe 49 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:22.479 I was out of shape, I thought, the first s 50 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.599 trude mission of retired life's lazy promise. Or maybe the 51 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:27.879 energy of memory, the thrill of child its prints had 52 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:31.719 exaggerated the old distances. Was the periodical's corner always as 53 00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:33.800 far from the mural of the city harbor, or had 54 00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:37.120 the space changed with time and renovation. When I finally arrived, 55 00:02:37.159 --> 00:02:39.680 I felt both satisfyingly out of breath and quietly puzzled. 56 00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:42.400 The rut i'd recolt should have ended yards earlier at 57 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:44.759 the arm chair with embroidery and reveling down the sides. 58 00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:47.719 Except the chair was not where memory had placed it. 59 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:50.639 I hesitated, a half smile still on my face, but 60 00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:53.960 a flicker of perplexity rising underneath. I shoved a copy 61 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:56.759 of Scientific American, glanced around, and for a moment let 62 00:02:56.759 --> 00:02:58.879 my hand rest on the smooth wood of the magazine shelf. 63 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:03.759 I wasn't und settled, just curious. The building looked unchanged 64 00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:05.879 on the outside, a neat basket of bricks and glass 65 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:09.039 hugging the corner of Walton Street and Maple. Nothing in 66 00:03:09.039 --> 00:03:11.960 my stroll from the street, nor in the library's inviting proportions, 67 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:14.639 suggested it had grown, ballooned, or hid a new wings. 68 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:17.919 Yet there was no mistaking it. Something inside was quietly 69 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.680 longer than before, familiarity, an honest mix near the denying 70 00:03:21.719 --> 00:03:24.680 the other. I chalked it up to nostalgia, toook off 71 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:27.080 the stray thought, and told myself I'd find my bearings 72 00:03:27.080 --> 00:03:30.639 again soon after all places always feel little alien at first, 73 00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:33.719 even the blored ones. But a small persistent part of 74 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:36.520 me wondered why, despite all my years wandering city parks 75 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:39.840 and tracing footbaths with botanical certainty. The old libraries inside 76 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:42.159 path had somehow slt the logic of its own walls. 77 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:45.240 Wednesdays at the library followed a rhythm so gentle it 78 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:47.439 was almost music. The hush of doors, the crinkle and 79 00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:49.520 tout of books landing on carts, the soft purr of 80 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:52.439 rubbers holls along the aisles. My new roll gave me 81 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:55.360 license to move anywhere. Caught into spine labels facing outward, 82 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:58.000 my badge clipped at a cockout angle in the bright 83 00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:01.199 morning sun ran in thick slices between them, stacks pinting, striped, 84 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:05.560 crousteridber cup. The library's interior was part labyrinth, part nest. 85 00:04:06.280 --> 00:04:08.719 Some wings had kept their original brick arches and heavy 86 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:11.719 wooden shelves, their finished stinned honey gold by decades of light. 87 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:15.080 Others showed seams in stubborn integration with new glass editions, 88 00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:17.439 a reading room that looked out across the park, panels 89 00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:19.959 of transiscent ark glass flickering with pale marrigold. When the 90 00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:23.240 cloud cover broke, the blend was charming and slightly awkward, 91 00:04:23.399 --> 00:04:25.680 not unlike an old house reimagined by a modern architect, 92 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:28.879 but determined not to lose its familiar soul. Gloria, the 93 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:31.639 head librarian, moved through the building with both confidence and 94 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:35.199 careful grace. With her gray haired bond and elpatent sweater, 95 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:38.480 she seemed as unchanged as the books themselves. Her laughter 96 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:40.959 was catching, and she greeted every regular by name, never 97 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:42.920 missing a thank you for a returned volume or a 98 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:46.920 smile for confused tourist. Once youw shelved encyclopedias here, nothing 99 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:50.000 ever feels far away, she joked, pausing at the circulation desk, 100 00:04:50.759 --> 00:04:53.680 except maybe the back stairs. Those are another matter. He 101 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:56.639 could always find mister Valdes in cataloging, no matter the hour. 102 00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.560 He was a thin, sprightly man in his late seventies, 103 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:03.879 fawn polkadot bowties and suspiciously strong peppermint. His mind, even 104 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:07.199 sharper than Glory is overflowed with stories. He loved giving 105 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:10.199 the grand tour to volunteers, invariably beginning with a warning 106 00:05:10.279 --> 00:05:12.600 about the unreliable lifts and ending with tales of missing 107 00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:16.639 books found years later entirely wrong sections. His toes performed 108 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:18.319 that the deaft assurance of a magician, even as he 109 00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:20.560 joked about library magic, made it hard not to fill 110 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:23.800 the place was somehow conspiratorial, friendly and a little mysterious 111 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:27.199 by intention. Wednesday mornings always bowed inwood. At ten thirty, 112 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:30.279 when June and Oli, the senior volunteers, arrived with thermoses 113 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:33.639 of tea balanced on stacks of unshelved biographies. Jean, her 114 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:36.199 hair cliffed in a sensible bristle, recounted stories from her 115 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:39.319 own childhood taries under the arches FIA's competitions for the 116 00:05:39.319 --> 00:05:42.680 first glance at the new arrivals trolley. Oli, taller than 117 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:45.680 anyone else in the library and always trailing laughter, remembered 118 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:48.560 marathoning through the maze of history, darting between reading books 119 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:52.279 with his siblings. They invented as they worked, muttering about categories, 120 00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:54.839 sharing old jokes about shelving war's comrades. Shaped as much 121 00:05:54.839 --> 00:05:57.480 by the buildings by the books inside it, the background 122 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:01.240 routine never faltered. Books with stin sordid carded and despatched, 123 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.120 some to the far corners of reference, some to the 124 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:06.040 sunlit coziness near the door, where families gathered for story hour. 125 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.519 The clientele matched the character of the library, and patienteenes 126 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:12.720 were tirees, determinedly reading the paper. Toddler shuffing between pictured 127 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:15.360 books and the earnest few who seemed intent on conquering 128 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:18.439 the entire gudecimal system for me to see. Neighborhood life 129 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:22.279 seeped in through the entryway. Rowhouses lined the boulevard, the gardens, 130 00:06:22.279 --> 00:06:25.360 always a little overgroom calf is bustled on the corner, 131 00:06:25.399 --> 00:06:27.920 each with faded umbrellas and blackwood menus jostling for the 132 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:31.000 sunniest real estate. The city park, where I spent a 133 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.480 bulk of my life as employee, then as quiet watchers 134 00:06:33.560 --> 00:06:36.319 rolled only a block away, its paths visible through the libraries, 135 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:40.319 remade glassissade. My routine settled quickly. I arrived each Wednesday 136 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:42.720 with no shortage of patience, savoring the coffee from my 137 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.839 batted flask. Each week I made a private study of 138 00:06:45.839 --> 00:06:49.959 the building, half nostalgier, half quiet engineering curiosity. I counted 139 00:06:49.959 --> 00:06:52.279 time by the felter light moving across the history shells, 140 00:06:52.279 --> 00:06:55.560 and the faint buzz from the heating vents under the windows. Sometimes, 141 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:57.839 as I rewound a cart back to circulation, I caught 142 00:06:57.839 --> 00:06:59.519 my own reflection in a pin of glass, and took 143 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:01.639 notrid of my posture, that of a man requenting himself 144 00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:05.279 with an old, enigmatic friend. The peculiarity of my first daid, 145 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:07.680 the stretching, the elongated walk lingered as a kind of 146 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:10.399 gentle puzzle at the back of my mind, enough to 147 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:13.720 warrant attention, not enough to disturb the peace. Nothing in 148 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:16.199 the world of the library, where its routine suggested a secret, 149 00:07:16.279 --> 00:07:18.759 only a kind of harmless intimacy between place and habit. 150 00:07:19.480 --> 00:07:21.839 Yet the memory of my childhood raiss through the stacks, 151 00:07:21.959 --> 00:07:24.519 the sense of precise geography, the way the outdoor walls 152 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:27.199 never seemed to match the feeling inside of these returned quietly, 153 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:30.759 pressing for clarity whenever my thoughts wandered. One morning, I 154 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.600 was shelving a set of biographies, thin volumes authors I 155 00:07:33.639 --> 00:07:36.759 had long ago stop pretending to know their numbers. Placed 156 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:38.720 them at the far edge of the second floor, along 157 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:40.959 route that, according to the floor maps, should have taken 158 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:43.319 no more than a minute. I set off with the cart, 159 00:07:43.399 --> 00:07:46.319 rounded the familiar corner, and found myself under an unfamiliar 160 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.079 glass dome. I stopped, heart taking, though less out of 161 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:52.360 alarm and gentle incredulity. The dome was beautiful, colored with 162 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:54.360 a greenish hue, casting a glow that pool on the 163 00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:57.519 great oil floor below. I stood tracing the pattern style 164 00:07:57.560 --> 00:07:59.519 as sit escapes and walls of press glass. But I 165 00:07:59.519 --> 00:08:01.600 could not reco ever seeing it, neither as a child, 166 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:04.639 nor in these last weeks. The dome seemed too ground 167 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:06.959 for the modest exterior, too ornate to have been stitched 168 00:08:06.959 --> 00:08:09.399 in without someone mentioning it. I took note of my 169 00:08:09.439 --> 00:08:12.480 cut's position and tried to retrace my intented path. When 170 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:15.199 I exited under the dome, rather than finding the biography 171 00:08:15.240 --> 00:08:17.959 shells where I expected, I emerged near the microphone cabinets 172 00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:20.399 of fifty foot deter by any standard, and nowhere near 173 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:23.319 my original route. For a moment, I felt the beginnings 174 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:26.720 of embarrassment. Had I missed a turn? Was I simply 175 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:30.079 out of practice? I scanned for reassuring landmarks, the fire 176 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:33.320 exit sign, the catalog computers, the heavy old clock mounted 177 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:36.120 above the staff room's door. Unable to shake the sense 178 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:38.440 of rawness, I sought out one of the tall nominated 179 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:41.919 floor maps posted at intervals. I ran my finger along 180 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:44.200 the diagram, double checked my position by the number of 181 00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:47.480 shells and the placement of the microfilm cabinets. The layout 182 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:49.480 made perfect sense on paper. My route should have passed 183 00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:52.639 directly by periodicals, then wrapped gently around the reference desk. 184 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:56.039 No domes or extra corridors in evidence, yet, no stretch 185 00:08:56.039 --> 00:08:59.600 of shells, no amount of retracing mashed my experience. It 186 00:08:59.679 --> 00:09:02.399 rattle me a little. This mismatch between mapp memory and 187 00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:03.879 where my own feet had taken me a kind of 188 00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:07.679 spatial riddle, quietly defying any logical explanation. I found mister 189 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:10.399 Valds done by the magazine caddy, humming softly and slought 190 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:13.840 in periodicals with the dexterity that defied his age. Ever 191 00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:16.000 get lost on the way from the biography stacks, I 192 00:09:16.039 --> 00:09:17.840 seemed to find a new dome to day, I said, 193 00:09:17.879 --> 00:09:20.720 trying to steady my tone between amusement and genuine confusion. 194 00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:24.360 He brightened, shaking his head. Oh it's always a good 195 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:26.559 walk here, keeps the mind shop. Better to get lost 196 00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:29.639 than bored, I always say, he shot back, eyes twinkling 197 00:09:29.639 --> 00:09:32.440 above his gold room spectacles. I tried to laugh it 198 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:35.840 off with him, but the exchange barely reassured me. Anyone else, 199 00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:38.360 I suppose would let its lide. But I had spent 200 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:41.440 too many years measuring long plots, charting trails and tweaking 201 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:43.720 part maps to let the spatial trick pass, and challenged 202 00:09:44.360 --> 00:09:46.919 the idea that the library might be stretching, folding, or 203 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:50.720 slightly re arranging itself demanded closer attention. I resolved to 204 00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:53.080 pay closer attention in the weeks that followed, if only 205 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:55.320 to decide whether the contradiction was hidden with the building 206 00:09:55.480 --> 00:09:58.600 or somewhere inside me. The next time I volunteered, I 207 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:01.120 slipped a pedometer onto my belt, tucking the digital display 208 00:10:01.159 --> 00:10:03.720 where nobody could see it. I'd used the same cheap 209 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:06.159 device to truck walks in the city. Pocket's margins always 210 00:10:06.159 --> 00:10:09.399 accurate within a few steps. That morning, I mapped up 211 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:12.080 why Tess from the children's wing passed the arch through 212 00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:16.840 the fiction aisle and into the periodical section Predictable Measurable, 213 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:19.960 a rod I shared by Red snow by Heart. I 214 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.679 set off counting each step, watching the numbers accumulate. Everything 215 00:10:23.679 --> 00:10:26.279 seemed familiar at first, the welcoming day of story hour, 216 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:28.960 the lopsided display of recent returns, the faint whiff of 217 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:31.519 orange peel from someone's half eaten snack in a paper bag. 218 00:10:32.120 --> 00:10:34.759 But at some point the steps started to outstrip my expectation. 219 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:37.279 Although the corridor had expanded in slight defiance of the 220 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:40.399 visible floor plan, fifty seven steps, a good dozen more 221 00:10:40.440 --> 00:10:42.879 than the first time. By my count. The arch ab 222 00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:45.080 of the door glowed at the same distant angle. Despite 223 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:47.720 the journey. I walked the route twice in the same hour, 224 00:10:47.879 --> 00:10:51.240 once in mid morning, once close to lunch. Each time 225 00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:54.080 my pedometer showed a small but distinct increase in the distance. 226 00:10:54.799 --> 00:10:57.120 On the third attempt, a new arch reappeared, a simple 227 00:10:57.159 --> 00:11:00.399 Gothic spaniard the romance paperbacks boasting a trailing I could 228 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:02.919 swear was plastic and certainly not there the previous week. 229 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:07.159 I changed my approach. I walked the corridors with deliberate swillness, 230 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:09.679 tried to trick the pedometer by varying my stride, even 231 00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:11.600 circled back to see if the path would shrink if 232 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:14.559 our reversed direction. No luck. The building scene bent on 233 00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:18.159 reminding me of its private metric. Every retrecing revealed a 234 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:20.919 fresh oddity and misplaced staircase, a painted mural where only 235 00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:24.320 a blank wall should be. I tried to map the anomalies, 236 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:27.519 but each out strained belief. I resolved to consult June, 237 00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:29.279 who was sorting a pile of battered cookbooks in the 238 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:32.320 back corner. Did the path from the children's wing always 239 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:34.799 feel so and I mean as kindly impossibly long when 240 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:39.399 we were kids, I asked, feigning nonchalance. June laughed, eyes 241 00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:43.000 cleanting behind her thick glasses, longer, if anything. My sister 242 00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:44.480 and I used to bet on who could reach the 243 00:11:44.559 --> 00:11:47.000 check out desk fastest should always win. Nclaim the library 244 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:49.159 was on her side. Never figured out her short cut, 245 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:51.000 but I always felt like the whole stretch just to 246 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:53.679 test us. I pressed further, Do you think it ever 247 00:11:53.720 --> 00:11:56.080 really changed? Or is it just nosalgia may step to 248 00:11:56.120 --> 00:12:00.120 keep adding up more than I expect? She shrugged. Man, 249 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:03.120 memory does play tricks. Maybe the books just rearrange themselves 250 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:05.799 when we're not looking. She smiled at her own answer, 251 00:12:06.159 --> 00:12:10.600 more enchanted than weary Ali overhearing chinin, Well, we all 252 00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:13.120 got lost racing geography. Never thought twice about it, or 253 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:15.159 maybe didn't want to. It was just part of the place, 254 00:12:15.519 --> 00:12:19.240 wasn't it. I left the conversation unconvinced, but not unamused. 255 00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:21.879 If the oddity was real, it seemed to hide in 256 00:12:21.919 --> 00:12:25.000 plain sight, folded into the fabric of library memory, And 257 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:28.240 yet their stories pressed me on. Later the day, shoving 258 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:30.480 referenced tomes. Near the desk, I discovered a stack of 259 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:33.440 blueprints and old floor plans haphazardly wedged behind a row 260 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:37.360 of battered encyclopedies. The top page, yellowed at the corners 261 00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:40.240 and samped nineteen fifty four, showed a library only two 262 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:43.360 thirds as long as the one I wondered. Now. Later plans, 263 00:12:43.519 --> 00:12:46.240 all undated but clearly more recent, trace to moderately larger 264 00:12:46.279 --> 00:12:49.440 building with blank gray blocks labeled renovated nineteen seventy six 265 00:12:49.480 --> 00:12:52.559 and new reading room. None displayed the dome, nor the 266 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:54.679 archwy with the fake vine, nor the odd vir in 267 00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:58.080 the corridor's head traced by foot. Furious, I slipped into 268 00:12:58.080 --> 00:12:59.960 the main lobby, leaving through the brushure's stash by the 269 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:03.240 service desk. The posted floor matched, to my surprise, didn't 270 00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:06.200 always agree with each other. One displayed a map room 271 00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:08.519 by the east and staircades, another did not. A third 272 00:13:08.559 --> 00:13:11.159 gave barely a passing reference to an occasional archers touched 273 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:13.679 between the first floor reference in the lower level stacks. 274 00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:17.120 Fueled by equal parts mischief and confusion, I wandered farther 275 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:20.279 than usual, pushing into rarely used aisles. At the end 276 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.159 of one labeled gastronomy with printed curling tape, I noticed 277 00:13:23.159 --> 00:13:26.360 an unmarked or anonymous and lost in the shadows. On 278 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:28.799 a whim, I tugged at the handle, half expecting it 279 00:13:28.799 --> 00:13:32.480 to be locked. Instead swung open onto a narrow stairwell that, 280 00:13:32.519 --> 00:13:35.000 by any reasonable reckoning, ought to lie on the opposite 281 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:37.519 side of the building. At the bottom the stairs led 282 00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:40.080 past the nondescript window, then curled back toward what I 283 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:43.080 guessed was the microphone cabinet's apposition that, according to every map, 284 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:46.440 meant doubling back through the building's central axis. For a moment, 285 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:48.399 I stood at the foot of the stairwell, peering upward 286 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:51.440 through a high des frimmed window. The sun had shifted, 287 00:13:51.639 --> 00:13:54.679 gold rippling on brick outside, illuminating the dust in the stairwalls. 288 00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:57.679 Stagnan air, it was quiet enough to hear my own heartbeat, 289 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:01.039 soft and steady, I felt more than saw the building's 290 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:04.399 resistance to tidy geometry. Its basis spent only partly to 291 00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:08.039 the known and mostly to the unseen that accounted the theory. 292 00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:10.000 I had noticed that the confusion stem from my own 293 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:12.960 slipping memory or some innocent error of navigation began to crumble. 294 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:16.679 The numbers didn't lie. The maps, and the routes, each 295 00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:19.600 carefully measured and compared, couldn't be squared by any ordinary 296 00:14:19.639 --> 00:14:22.679 trick of renovation or mistaken recollection, especially since the buildings 297 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:24.879 modest at to form match his public footprint, with no 298 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.960 bolting wings, no hidden annexes visible from Alton Street or 299 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:31.399 the park at the city expanded the building in secret walls, 300 00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:34.679 fluxing like an accordion at odd hours. One day, as 301 00:14:34.679 --> 00:14:37.000 I stood by the lobby's north window after a particularly 302 00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:40.559 meandering circuit, I spied mister Valder's heading for the biography stacks. 303 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:43.720 I hurried to join him, keen for both company and 304 00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:47.320 another silent test. Together we ambled toward the back rooms, 305 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:49.759 chatting about volunteer schedules and the odd clump of books 306 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:52.799 labeled occult that always seemed to attract dust and lulled conversation. 307 00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:55.720 As we walked, I made note of the wret I 308 00:14:55.799 --> 00:14:59.519 felt precise, shortened, anchored by mister Valders's steady stride, the 309 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:02.519 moments of distortion, the looping, the doubling back, the sense 310 00:15:02.519 --> 00:15:04.399 of a journey growing despite the limits of the map 311 00:15:04.399 --> 00:15:07.360 were absent. The archway, when glimpsed with him at my side, 312 00:15:07.399 --> 00:15:11.000 appeared where logic said it should. Later, alone and retracing 313 00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:13.879 my steps, the corridor stretched again, each section and spooling 314 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:17.320 into improbable distance. The anomaly was not It seemed a 315 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:21.279 fixed aspect of architecture, or even time. It bent toward solitude, 316 00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:24.559 stretching and sometimes compressing. When I walked the inner routes alone, 317 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:27.679 social movement staff beside me aligned the path to the 318 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:32.320 expected mat logic was a phenomenon mine alone, some deeply 319 00:15:32.360 --> 00:15:35.480 private illusion, or was it a function of moving in company, 320 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:38.720 of the reassurance of shared experience, anchoring rooms in mutual agreement. 321 00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:41.639 I found myself drawn to the task, less with apprehension 322 00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:45.840 and more with stubborn, honest curiosity, a riddle not an illness. 323 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:49.120 The stakes for me were never personal in a fearful sense, 324 00:15:49.159 --> 00:15:53.120 but intensely intellectual. The contradiction was total, yet calm, magnetic, 325 00:15:53.279 --> 00:15:58.879 not menacing. So I tested further each Wednesday, sometimes unborrowed afternoons. 326 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:01.240 I brought a spare notebook, a simple tally clicker, and 327 00:16:01.279 --> 00:16:03.840 the sorted colored pens to track each corridor each day, 328 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:07.879 well every deeter. My sketches full page after page, documenting 329 00:16:07.919 --> 00:16:11.840 distances that fluctuated within the same hour. Sometimes after a 330 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:15.159 particularly puzzling loop, my step count would no triple the expected. 331 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:18.799 I started measuring not only steps, but ten minutes, spinning 332 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:21.559 out of proportion to mere feet covered. The floor plan 333 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:23.840 ceased to behave like a stable snapshot, and took on 334 00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:27.159 the qualities of a living, shifting thing. One route circled 335 00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:29.320 on my crew map should have led directly from reference 336 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:31.480 to local history straight shot to except six out of 337 00:16:31.480 --> 00:16:34.679 ten traversals curved instead through and familiar nonviction shells, carving 338 00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:37.759 a looping path longer by yards. The longest route I 339 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:40.600 measured and painstaking detail on a slow Tuesday was nearly 340 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:42.919 a quarter mile, three times the outer dimension of the 341 00:16:42.960 --> 00:16:46.360 building itself, as maptin verified from the street. I paid 342 00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:48.360 attention to what I carried, how I felt, oh, what 343 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:50.960 was on my mind? If I was searching for an 344 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:53.320 elusive title, say the rare hud By copy of Growing 345 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:56.600 Together Community Gardens since nineteen fifty to corridor with lengthened 346 00:16:56.600 --> 00:17:00.240 first and eventually disgorged me somewhere adjacent but never quite correct. 347 00:17:00.679 --> 00:17:03.919 On days when shelving with easy commonplace novels. The building 348 00:17:03.960 --> 00:17:07.000 contracted coils of shelves hugging the walls, the passage short 349 00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:10.200 and sensible. Late one afternoon, are cracked open the door 350 00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:13.079 at the end of a magazine aisle, expecting, by prior logic, 351 00:17:13.200 --> 00:17:16.359 a supply closet. To my surprise, the door yielded to 352 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:18.920 shadow chamber, aligned with stody map cases and heavy leather 353 00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:21.279 bound atlases, the air sharp with the tie of wood 354 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:24.119 polish and old paper. On a table near the window, 355 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.960 press clippings and architectural plans lay into liberate confusion. Catalog 356 00:17:28.039 --> 00:17:30.960 labels and familiar in cryptic index stacks of city plans 357 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:34.279 and blueprints, many marked with numbers absent from the public signage. 358 00:17:34.759 --> 00:17:37.200 One brittle file revealed the map Roumour name scrolled in 359 00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:41.960 blue grease pencil I poured over city records, renovation budgets, blueprints, 360 00:17:42.039 --> 00:17:45.880 reports of minor expansions over seventy years. The city's paperwork 361 00:17:46.039 --> 00:17:49.279 thorough to fault, documented only modest changes, nothing remotely large 362 00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:51.440 enough to account for my measured circuits. While the extra 363 00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:54.359 space is hidden behind a mark. Doors with each week, 364 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:57.319 while observation shifted farther from innocent confusion into the realm 365 00:17:57.400 --> 00:18:00.799 of the impossible. The library's internal world, mat by my 366 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:03.480 own hands and body, bore no relationship to its compact 367 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:06.839 to tidy exterior. I canered glory. After lunches, she checked 368 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:09.319 books on to the halt shelf. Do you ever find 369 00:18:09.359 --> 00:18:13.279 books in completely new places? I asked, We're rooms that 370 00:18:13.319 --> 00:18:16.359 don't quite remember where they are meant to be. She chuckled, 371 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:19.799 ice crinkling urban legends. We jerved the buildings alive, growing 372 00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:22.480 with us inside it. Maybe books that disappear and come 373 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:24.680 back in a romance section two months later, orth that 374 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.119 return long after they should have passed unto the sales table. 375 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:29.839 Once years ago, a child got lost and turned up, 376 00:18:29.880 --> 00:18:32.240 saying she'd walked forages, only to pop out by the 377 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:34.960 door her mother was standing at. I pressed, do you 378 00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:37.640 think there's anything unusual about this branch? Anything not in 379 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:41.640 the blueprints? She shrugged, comfortable in mystery. If there is, 380 00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:44.079 it's been here longer than a half. The library grows, 381 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:46.160 the city grows. I like to think it stretches for 382 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:49.480 what people need. My inspections of other libraries crossed town 383 00:18:49.559 --> 00:18:52.839 proved mundane. The stack remained in tidy, expected order, the 384 00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:56.200 routes measurable and brief. The staff at these branches described 385 00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:59.839 no self adjusting wings, no records of unusual returns. The 386 00:19:00.039 --> 00:19:02.079 city's building codes. The thick booklets I'd browsed in the 387 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:04.920 map room made only passing mention of overbranch's minor repairs, 388 00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:08.559 traffic flow, and the steadic upgrades, no suggestion of extra 389 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:12.039 square footage tucked inside the ordinary walls. It dawned on 390 00:19:12.039 --> 00:19:14.480 me all at once, during a roundabout trip from children's 391 00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:16.480 to local history, that what I was measuring, and what 392 00:19:16.519 --> 00:19:19.000 I now believed to be quietly stubborny reel, was no 393 00:19:19.079 --> 00:19:22.200 simple trick of feeling or recollection. The changing routes, the 394 00:19:22.279 --> 00:19:25.319 rooms I sprang upward disappeared. The surreptitious stretching and twisting 395 00:19:25.359 --> 00:19:27.960 of Hallwyzies belonged not to mytho ul trauma, but to 396 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:31.920 something present, physical, and wholly unaccounted for. For the first time, 397 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:34.759 I stepped back in wordlessaw I ran a thumb along 398 00:19:34.759 --> 00:19:37.599 a shelf of creased encyclopedias, listening to my heart settle 399 00:19:37.640 --> 00:19:40.759 into a calm and familiar rhythm. The evidence was overwhelming. 400 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:43.839 The contradiction total the libraries inside bore no true relation 401 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:47.519