WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.560 Hello, I'm welcoined stories all the time. Glad you are here. 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:11.759 Let's get into it. I have always trusted the bones 3 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:14.800 of a building. After thirty years as a school librarian, 4 00:00:14.839 --> 00:00:16.559 I can read a four planed away. Some people re 5 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:18.719 Pum's tipps of the fingers trace In the past, students 6 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:21.480 might wander I skipping alertly for corners that attracts, build 7 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:25.239 juice or secret notes. So in retirement, volunteering at the 8 00:00:25.239 --> 00:00:27.760 city's grand library, I expected, at the very least the 9 00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:30.120 security of knowing that bookshelves do not walk away when 10 00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:33.039 you turn your back. The Bryan Public Library was built 11 00:00:33.039 --> 00:00:36.200 on confidence, columns of a colored marble, broad windows flashing 12 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:39.280 afternoon sun, and a floor plan unchanged, so I believed 13 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:42.280 since before I was born. So when on a soffer 14 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:44.960 bright Wednesday, I was sent to shelve stack of reference books, 15 00:00:45.079 --> 00:00:48.840 marshou skuffed familiar trail Fictions is closest to the atrium. 16 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:51.920 Young adults spoils along the mezzanine loft, and the local 17 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:55.000 history section has always always fanked the south windows, overlooking 18 00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:58.759 statues of city founders with frowning bronze brows. The faces 19 00:00:58.799 --> 00:01:01.399 in those statues are indistinct, but the shelving never was. 20 00:01:02.119 --> 00:01:04.840 That day, arriving at my station with my annotated slip, 21 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:08.239 I found myself instead facing gardening and horticulture, rose and 22 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:10.719 rows of tissue, thin books and late spring colors, each 23 00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:14.040 stamped with green sycamore leaves. I stole in the aisle 24 00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:15.799 as watering a little from the slant a sun that 25 00:01:15.799 --> 00:01:19.359 always hit local history, just saw the shelf labels orderly, 26 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:23.400 as always declared gardening, horticulture, then in psychology in a tight, 27 00:01:23.519 --> 00:01:27.000 careful hand, Margaret's handwriting surely. Yet two days ago I 28 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:29.560 had directed a man in a pork pahatube. Strange crimes, 29 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:32.760 urban myths of bryaned exactly here the Detective had been 30 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:35.640 shelved in this spot since the eighties. For a moment, 31 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:37.439 I squinted at the dust on the eyes shelf. No 32 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:40.480 sign of disturbance, no smudges of faint rectangles betraying a 33 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:43.840 recent transition, No wagons of books of stray moving carts, 34 00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:47.040 no tags enance in temporary closure, no hint of the 35 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.799 temporary chaos that follows a shift of the scale. And 36 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:52.000 yet all the world ran me behaved as if nothing 37 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.480 had changed. A regular patron with a pencil. Thin musta 38 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:56.840 sat cross like it in the sunlight, thumbing fuil E 39 00:01:56.959 --> 00:01:59.879 rohoded Endrons, and Margaret at the desk left into her phone. 40 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:02.400 Deep in the mirrow of my muscles. I was certain 41 00:02:02.439 --> 00:02:05.280 this was not right. Just then a spotted ben, the 42 00:02:05.359 --> 00:02:08.639 new trainee peering through the book, returned slot. He waved, 43 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:12.599 stacked tevering in his arms. A mess, howard mind helping 44 00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:15.120 me sort these go in local history? Well, what we 45 00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:17.680 have a bit left? He nodded in the direction of 46 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.479 the marble stairwell and airy generally reserved for Atlas's and 47 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:23.680 city planning reports. When I hesitated a little too long, 48 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:27.360 bend blink, then beamed right this way, always tuck beside 49 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:29.520 the banisters. I had two old times chase me done 50 00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:32.080 because I tried putting biographies in with local history. They 51 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:34.120 briet if we ever moved it away from the staircase. 52 00:02:34.599 --> 00:02:38.039 He chuckled, inviting me to join the joke. I told myself, 53 00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:41.360 perhaps I'd made an error, After all, buildings are larger 54 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:44.680 than one person's memory. Still, I followed him, hot hammering 55 00:02:44.719 --> 00:02:48.280 toward the banister's cat crescent of light over Smithstone. Sure enough, 56 00:02:48.479 --> 00:02:51.479 the local history shelves were away beside the stairs the 57 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:55.360 familiar row Bryan eighteen seventy two, nineteen hundred business directory 58 00:02:55.400 --> 00:02:58.199 a local legends in that same label style, But the 59 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.879 volumes were settled dustless, just as in this opposed original home. 60 00:03:02.639 --> 00:03:06.080 Just then it shuffled. By squinting through his glasses, he 61 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:08.520 gave a crooked grin, waving a copy of Public Works 62 00:03:08.599 --> 00:03:11.479 nineteen seventy two. He moved as if nothing were odd. 63 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:14.439 On the opposite side of the counter, a woman stooped 64 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:17.319 to retrieve a ghost, so brine passed her actions common habitual. 65 00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:22.080 No one betrayed any surprise. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps they 66 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:25.360 simply reorganized this morning and failed to mention it. Though 67 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:28.199 the more I watched Margaret pulling circulation numbers bid micheleve 68 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:30.879 in a city directory at Hammingtonsley, the more impossible that 69 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:34.680 explanation seemed. I found myself soaking the shelves twice before 70 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:37.800 retreating to the staff break room. There, the shadows hung 71 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:40.800 thickly dull, settling among them smatched muggs, as if even 72 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:43.520 the air refused to move. The world around me denied 73 00:03:43.560 --> 00:03:47.439 anything had happened, And yet my uncertainty took group. I'm 74 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:49.840 not unaccustomed to doubts. The mind grow as fallible as 75 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:53.280 the eostretch. Still, even now, I can walk the rud 76 00:03:53.319 --> 00:03:55.039 of every fire drill we ever held in my old 77 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:58.039 elementary school downstairs will be past the Jim's trophy case 78 00:03:58.120 --> 00:04:01.039 out of the kerbapple tree. Those patterns do not drift. 79 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:05.000 Buildings I thought are trustworthy. But that night I lay 80 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:08.159 awake cataloging every placement every March sunlight slant, convinced there 81 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:10.360 had been an unacknowledged, is subtle shift not only in 82 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:12.599 the world, but in how the world insisted it existed. 83 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:16.560 The mystery burrowed in quietly. Why had nobody else questioned it? 84 00:04:17.199 --> 00:04:19.680 Why if local history had always been by the stairs, 85 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:21.879 did I recall retrieving a guide to Brian Pausus by 86 00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:24.959 the garden windows only last month. The next afternoon, I 87 00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:27.759 arrived early for my volunteer shift, determined to ground myself 88 00:04:27.759 --> 00:04:30.959 in routine. Bryant Library, for all its reputation, grand, as 89 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:34.040 heavy as a cathedral, ran on rituals both formal and informal, 90 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:37.160 market presided at the front desk, encamped behind a round 91 00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:39.680 part of a virgune, notices and dribbling looks of horrible tea. 92 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:43.240 We greeted each other by name a habit, Margaret any 93 00:04:43.279 --> 00:04:46.000 ghost to day. It was a jerk between us aching 94 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:49.240 decades of staff or about friendly spirits. Whispering along the hrack. 95 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:53.480 Margaret grinned, her thick glasses sliding down her nose. The 96 00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:55.439 closest I've come to a haunting is that the coffee's 97 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:57.720 gone again. Don't let benyar the break room unless you 98 00:04:57.759 --> 00:05:00.279 want Camma Mile in your mug. The exchange, which was 99 00:05:00.319 --> 00:05:02.279 as grounding as the clatter of the front doors, the 100 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:05.959 scent of lemb and polish rising faintly from the stone floors. These, 101 00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:09.680 I reminded myself, do not change. There are routines, and 102 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:11.759 there are the rituals with which we orient ourselves. The 103 00:05:11.800 --> 00:05:14.480 orientation of desks, the placement of book cuts, the familiar 104 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:16.319 weight of the story I read A love sprung from 105 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:20.279 the bottom shelf. My own works followed suit I catalog. 106 00:05:20.439 --> 00:05:22.360 Not just books, but the ways in which the world 107 00:05:22.399 --> 00:05:25.040 was ordered were pens vanished each week, which shed developed 108 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:28.279 the permanent wobble in my margin filled planner sketches dart 109 00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:31.519 at the page's little rectangles marking restrooms, notes, about whichetlets 110 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:34.600 powered which lamps, not out of suspicion, only the old 111 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:36.600 impulse for order that made the children at my school 112 00:05:36.600 --> 00:05:39.439 call me a mess maps, even my recipes at home 113 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:42.759 lived in a Grudachell's, living alone in my facale condo. 114 00:05:42.959 --> 00:05:45.759 The library was now my best map of the city. Then, 115 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:49.000 for his part, barely survived his first weeks. He was 116 00:05:49.079 --> 00:05:53.199 gangly strawberries and cream, polite, stumbling over ge decimals, but 117 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:55.639 he was hungry for approval, and his delight in every 118 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:59.519 cartful of books grew infectious. He hovered near Margaret, hungry 119 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:03.600 for structure, his badge always slightly askew. Ed, meanwhile, was 120 00:06:03.639 --> 00:06:06.879 the library as an acknowledged resident. He'd entered the building 121 00:06:06.920 --> 00:06:09.360 every single day, excluding the brief pandemic closure and too 122 00:06:09.399 --> 00:06:12.240 irregular blizzards, since Ed first encountered him during a city 123 00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:15.639 history night in nineteen seventy two. Ed remembered the codes 124 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:19.000 to the old microfilm cabinets and never forgot a magazine's column. 125 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:23.879 Other regulars, missas Robinson, who pestered circulation with questions about 126 00:06:23.879 --> 00:06:26.839 forgotten poetry books. Sam behind the engineering descoal, gave the 127 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:30.240 place its character specimens in a living dirama. Then there 128 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:33.399 was the building itself. Bryant wasn't one of those glossy 129 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:37.240 minimum modern libraries with glass walls and echoing auditoriums. The 130 00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:39.959 marble was patched with generations of different tile, windows grew 131 00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:41.839 in and out of use, and the children's wing had 132 00:06:41.879 --> 00:06:44.439 once been by some bizarre plant an open air terrace. 133 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.920 Stories flitted among staff of od drafts near the fictionalcove, 134 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:51.079 or the ghosts of a vanished basement lavatory. None of 135 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:53.480 these tales were told with gravity. We laughed them away, 136 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:57.120 comforting one another with union jokes and familiar routines. Yet 137 00:06:57.360 --> 00:06:59.800 nothing in the building's mix of grandeur and patrick prepared 138 00:06:59.839 --> 00:07:02.480 me for for the business of wandering shelves. I had 139 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:05.079 always been mor ch into small changes, a missing light bulb, 140 00:07:05.079 --> 00:07:07.000 the familiar creek that meant some one had set foot 141 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:10.040 in the periodical aisle, the big things where reference lived, 142 00:07:10.079 --> 00:07:12.560 where one searched for city planning maps were fixed, no 143 00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:15.439 more likely to move than the sun. Every Thursday began 144 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:18.000 the same way, ten minute chat with Margaret, while swapping 145 00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:20.399 notes on the state of the building. She quis bent 146 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:24.079 about shelf reading, directed head toward new rivals, commented rly 147 00:07:24.120 --> 00:07:27.160 on the crop rotation in the garden and stacks. Each 148 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.439 time I added a tiny schematic to my planner, a 149 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:32.079 test of memory. In fact, the first time I drew 150 00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:34.240 in the local history shells beside the windows, and the 151 00:07:34.279 --> 00:07:36.160 next day so I eyed my old diagram as I 152 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:39.279 watched it glide effortlessly to spot near the stairwell. My 153 00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:42.319 finger traced in visible lines on the page, wondering whether 154 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:44.680 I ought to redraw or trist in something less tangible. 155 00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:47.439 A few days later, I swung by in a misty drizzle, 156 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:49.959 clutching a plastic bag of donated books from my neighbor. 157 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:53.399 The air smell sharply of wet tarmac and battled cardboard. 158 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.759 Stepping in, I stomped water from my shoes, delighting in 159 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:58.759 the steadiness of the tiled entrance and the hush of 160 00:07:58.759 --> 00:08:01.399 old stone beneath. The plan was to deposit the bag 161 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:04.439 at the volunteer services desk, and, if energy permitted, skip 162 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:06.600 upstairs for the new mural and veiling. A scene builders 163 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:09.279 now and then fryened in color. When I passed the 164 00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:12.319 reference area, I instinctively angled toward the mezzanine, seeking out 165 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:15.399 the old periodicals room row on row of chairs, sturdy 166 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:17.680 grey tables under winking pendent lance. That was where I 167 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:22.040 had for years etched microfilm for impatient genealogists. To day 168 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:25.240 periodicals was missing. In its place, there stood the local 169 00:08:25.319 --> 00:08:28.720 history section, sun painting long rectangles over the book spines, 170 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:32.480 the south facing windows bill gold. There was no evidence 171 00:08:32.519 --> 00:08:34.639 the swap had been staged. Nothing out of place, but 172 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:37.360 everything out of time. It rang so false in my mind. 173 00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:39.480 At I placed a hand to the shelf, checking its stability, 174 00:08:39.559 --> 00:08:42.440 half expecting the particleble to slip through my fingers, but 175 00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:45.919 the labels were unchanged. Bryan, nineteen o two, nineteen twenty seven. 176 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:49.480 A directory tragedy at the Bridge is societal Oddities. Even 177 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:52.159 the shelf height seemed identical to what I'd recalled, but 178 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:54.759 the conviction grew firmer within me. Something was off, and 179 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:57.440 the building had changed the skin over night, as if 180 00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:00.240 on cue. Margat called out taking off the day's inventory. 181 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:03.600 You know, I always liked sorting fupioardticles down here, She 182 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:07.279 gestured toward the sunlit stretch, Nothing like reading the society 183 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:10.080 pages with the light just so. Her voice was casual 184 00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:12.279 and trouble, as if the arrangement had been carved into 185 00:09:12.279 --> 00:09:14.919 the stone since her first day. She rifled through a 186 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:17.519 pile of catalogs and perturbed, and passed me a slip 187 00:09:17.559 --> 00:09:20.279 for approval. Meanwhile, I pressed my palm to the floor 188 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:23.519 near the third bay. There, barely visible beneath the toe 189 00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:25.840 of my sneaker, the tile had a faint, worn in print, 190 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:28.799 rounded capital letter spelling a hissed inefadd inly, now half 191 00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:32.000 lost under years of polish. The letter T curved slightly 192 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:34.360 up like a tail, a design I recognized from when 193 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:36.480 the city replaced part of the towerwalk in the late nineties, 194 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:38.960 the time I argued with the facility's manager about matching 195 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:42.600 stone collars. Their hiss tile for local history had rooted 196 00:09:42.639 --> 00:09:46.080 there for decades. Near By, Missess Robinson glared at the 197 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:49.960 morning light, fanning herself with a folded catalog. The magazine 198 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:51.960 to were better when the light came from the east windows. 199 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:55.360 She muttered under her breath, voiced heart with irritation. He 200 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:58.080 used to set upstairs, read my white whitman by the lattice. 201 00:09:58.159 --> 00:10:01.519 Everywhere has moved these days. Then as I opened my mouth, 202 00:10:01.559 --> 00:10:04.519 she waved the thought away, Well, I must be misremembered 203 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:07.320 and can't keep track now? Can I? The world around me? 204 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:11.399 I saw reflective little confusion. Margaret quoted coll numbers with confidence. 205 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:14.159 Ben Dart had passed reading off the day's statistics, oblivious 206 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:17.759 to the impossibilities unfolding beneath the sunlit windows. Only the 207 00:10:17.799 --> 00:10:20.840 floor acknowledged what Mammory insisted, a ghostly trace of her history, 208 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:24.279 refusing to yield to the new order. Later, moving down 209 00:10:24.279 --> 00:10:26.960 the hall, I noticed another oddity in all cat woll 210 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:30.200 outlet shape for a desktop computer, perfectly pleased miss the periodicals, 211 00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:32.279 though the computer stations had been asked from the space. 212 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:35.080 In my first year of volunteering in the children's area, 213 00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:37.600 a bookshelf scuffed the shape of an end, phantom evidence 214 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:40.080 that nonfiction had once lived here, before breeds of rabbits 215 00:10:40.120 --> 00:10:43.399 conquered the shelves. I began to question softly, at first, 216 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:45.639 quietly so as not to draw a humiliation from the 217 00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:47.919 younger code, whether the age was robbing me of certainty, 218 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:50.159 or whether the fabric of the library itself had begun 219 00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:52.480 to shift. I returned to home that day with a 220 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:54.039 distinct taste of brass in the doll like of a 221 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:57.960 question unanswered. Still the itch grew. Was I slipping? Was 222 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:01.120 the world? Or was something ignored? Looking between? That night, 223 00:11:01.159 --> 00:11:03.559 surrounded by the silence of my tiny kitchen, I opened 224 00:11:03.559 --> 00:11:05.679 my planner and inked anew cus grid of the library 225 00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:08.240 laout as I recalled at every shelf, every window, every nook. 226 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:11.320 I began to plan. If uncertainty was seeking me out, 227 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:13.200 I would meet it in the open, pen in hand, 228 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:15.840 ready to catch at shifting. By the next week, the 229 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:19.200 project had claimed me completely. Each afternoon I arrived on 230 00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:21.960 with the clipworts, lynd journals stashed beneath the yellow scarf. 231 00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:25.159 I became a quiet observer, slow walking the perimeter as 232 00:11:25.159 --> 00:11:28.679 the staff and patrons lived and changed routines. Marget and'sconced 233 00:11:28.759 --> 00:11:31.200 herself in gossip at the desk, while Ben spun between 234 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:33.440 carts and Kid's story time, the awkward rhythm of an 235 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:37.399 enthusiastic novice. I started simply labeling each section by hand, 236 00:11:37.559 --> 00:11:40.320 jotting in the jury numbers specifying which alcoves held which 237 00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:44.039 poetry anthologies. On Wednesday, I found the atlases tucked near 238 00:11:44.120 --> 00:11:47.000 children's non fiction, a pairing that tickled me. Children legs 239 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:49.519 swinging forward over maps of cities reel and imagine as 240 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:52.679 if it were bedtime reading. The oversized tatalus is dwarfed, 241 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:55.799 the tiny desks bright with colored pencil shavings, and every 242 00:11:55.799 --> 00:11:58.480 time I looked, another map was folded into oergomi shapes 243 00:11:58.519 --> 00:12:01.720 and abandoned under a chair. I made a note Atlas's 244 00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:05.279 second floor east shared with children's non fiction, But on Friday, 245 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:07.960 after a day's absence, children's craft books had wormed their 246 00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:10.519 way into a narrow basement alcove line with ghostly wallpipper, 247 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:12.399 a cluster of shells I had never visited, though I 248 00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:15.600 could have sworn only reference works lived here. When Monday 249 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:17.799 rolled round, I found the same craft books, tallied and 250 00:12:17.879 --> 00:12:21.399 up corridor beside the biography wall. Every glimpse backward, every 251 00:12:21.399 --> 00:12:23.600 ever to pin down the layout left me further drift. 252 00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:27.320 The diagrams I drew became ornate, intricate crossings and corrections 253 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:30.799 blooming wildly in the margins. Ruins shifted like living things, 254 00:12:30.840 --> 00:12:33.000 returned to one's matt space, and you were greeted with 255 00:12:33.159 --> 00:12:37.759 entirely new contents. The shapes persisted, shells banisters, the occasional mural, 256 00:12:37.799 --> 00:12:40.639 but the spirits of the rooms, the bookish inhabitants never 257 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:43.720 sat still. On one shelf, I found a scuffed blue 258 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:46.960 bookmark labeled Atlas three F halfway through the Language of Cows, 259 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:49.879 that is, in the Animal Husbandry section, a lonely corner 260 00:12:49.919 --> 00:12:52.840 that had not neighbored atlases in living memory. Rubbing the 261 00:12:52.919 --> 00:12:55.639 edge between my fingers, I wondered who had left this breadcrumb, 262 00:12:55.759 --> 00:12:58.879 or whether it had simply traveled without permission, as if conjured, 263 00:12:58.960 --> 00:13:01.960 been drifted into the isle searching for a missing circulation slip. 264 00:13:02.559 --> 00:13:06.399 Having trouble finding things, ben I teased, watching him check 265 00:13:06.440 --> 00:13:10.200 each shelf twice, hegrin sheepish, this place is a trickster. 266 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:12.279 I swear it a mess. Margat puts the shells in 267 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:14.159 a new place every morning, just to test me. Or 268 00:13:14.159 --> 00:13:16.919 it's the ghost or both. He smiles, but his brow 269 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:20.279 furrowed lightly. Was it his usual confusion or something else. 270 00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:24.320 Later that morning, Missess Robinson again appeared, casting her gaze 271 00:13:24.320 --> 00:13:27.759 over empty shelves. No poetry, she said, flatly, hands on 272 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:31.440 hips always in the southeastalko always, but to day not 273 00:13:31.559 --> 00:13:34.159 even an anthology. Oh well, must have slipped into the 274 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:37.080 new system. She pulled a volume of foulkhor instead and 275 00:13:37.159 --> 00:13:39.759 complained to mix of irritation and acceptance, and gone set 276 00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:42.279 me with a rice smile. I suppose when you've lived 277 00:13:42.279 --> 00:13:45.240 long enough, even the building's start to get away from you. Then, 278 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:48.039 as if it no longer mattered, she wandered toward reference 279 00:13:48.039 --> 00:13:51.399 with an old fashioned patience. There was one afternoon, blinking 280 00:13:51.399 --> 00:13:53.879 fluorescent lamps overhead, when I found a door wedged at 281 00:13:53.879 --> 00:13:56.240 the bottom of the main stair, Wileedora had never seen open, 282 00:13:56.759 --> 00:14:00.919 painted above it in precise gouldscript Ifemmel events room. Peeking inside, 283 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:03.600 I counted two dozen mismashed chairs in the circle boxes, 284 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:06.399 and stocks of cataloged pamphlets rising in half hearted towers. 285 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:09.919 The pamphlets were a mixed breed theater programs, lost and 286 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:13.240 found slips. A city council flier advertising a snow emergency 287 00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:16.639 from nineteen seventy four, pid you with delight. Afflecked through 288 00:14:16.679 --> 00:14:19.519 the pile, noting the named penn and careful block letters. 289 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.159 I touched one into my pocket to youth Poetry slam 290 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:24.639 Nowhere USA to bring up with Margaret forgetting about it 291 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.519 until later that week. But when I attempted to return, 292 00:14:27.639 --> 00:14:29.879 the door had vanished. Replaced with a dull wall and 293 00:14:29.919 --> 00:14:32.759 a cart filled with discarded text books. At the next 294 00:14:32.759 --> 00:14:35.279 morning staff check in, I tried my luck with Margaret, 295 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:37.879 careful to guard my pride, but tell me, has the 296 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:41.120 ephemeral events room always been by the stairwell? Margaret, frown 297 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:44.440 leafing through her clipbore, Oh, you mean the Harper room. 298 00:14:44.519 --> 00:14:46.960 We've only ever had that for rental events, and that's 299 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:50.240 off the main corridor. She caught my word gaze and winked. 300 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:54.080 E Former librarians always convinced the library should stay the same. 301 00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:56.679 We like to keep our reader's lively, keep things moving 302 00:14:56.720 --> 00:14:59.559 now and then, don't you behind her? Ben bad his 303 00:14:59.679 --> 00:15:03.320 lip watching me on the sly determament. I dug into 304 00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:06.720 the blue prints, descending into the chilly concrete archive. It 305 00:15:06.759 --> 00:15:09.000 had always suthed, the stubborn anxiety to touch things written 306 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.320 in a confident hand of architects, the certainty of tape, 307 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:14.360 measure and square. Lifting the plan from its drawer, I 308 00:15:14.399 --> 00:15:17.440 was greeted by the usual hodgepodge layers and layers of lines, 309 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:20.320 notes in red from every age, expansions and contractions, warring 310 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:23.600 an annotated pencil. But as I traced the halls. Corridor 311 00:15:23.639 --> 00:15:26.559 by corridor, I saw none of the possible permutations of space. 312 00:15:26.600 --> 00:15:30.240 I now observed Upstairs. Rooms were marked, but always occupying 313 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:33.759 contradictory impossible positions, sometimes the same section existing in two 314 00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:36.039 wings at the her times the same room raised entirely 315 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:39.320 from the plan. Even entries and staircases trusted in ways 316 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:42.399 that a current building would not accommodate. I jotted numbers 317 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:45.879 in my margin, overlaying my day's observations atop these jeweling realities. 318 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:48.559 Returning to the main floor, I watched as Head dropped 319 00:15:48.600 --> 00:15:51.559 his cane, stooping awkwardly to pick it up, looking for 320 00:15:51.639 --> 00:15:55.320 the old microfiche again. Add I offered a hand, He 321 00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:58.039 pursed his lips. Move it again, swear on my dear 322 00:15:58.080 --> 00:16:00.679 wife's grave every time the weather changes. The building tries 323 00:16:00.720 --> 00:16:03.840 to help fox me. Then back to his business, he whistled, 324 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:07.360 But I'll find it always do. Twinkle in his eye 325 00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:10.159 was not nostalgia nor irritation, but something subt loud or 326 00:16:10.159 --> 00:16:13.960 practiced adjustment. At home, my plan a bristled with contradictions. 327 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:16.440 Flour plans erased and replaced, a chart of outlet shapes 328 00:16:16.440 --> 00:16:19.120 that no longer matched any room. They occupied oddities like 329 00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:21.840 bits of old TA spelling, cryptic abbreviations, a murror in 330 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:24.879 the brick room nowhere USA, now impossibly positioned behind a 331 00:16:24.919 --> 00:16:29.320 newly built supply shelf. Each day, buildings conspired, shifting dimensions, 332 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:32.960 almost under my nose. If I hesitated, the evidence grew. 333 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:35.759 Wall seems whose history I could not track. An emergency 334 00:16:35.759 --> 00:16:38.679 exit described by irregular, which I'd never found. The persistent 335 00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:40.919 tale of the phantom lavatory told by stuff who'd never 336 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:44.279 once seen a toilet. Their living memory, the library's memory, 337 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:46.720 and the cities, and perhaps mine as well, seemed to 338 00:16:46.759 --> 00:16:49.039 part company as a feature clung to a separate map. 339 00:16:49.480 --> 00:16:52.240 When I pressed Margaret directly on the vanished Femeral events room, 340 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:55.639 she only blinked. We haven't had a room down there, except, 341 00:16:55.720 --> 00:16:58.440 of course, when we hosted that Kraft Fair in the nineties. 342 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:02.279 Must be blending things, dear, She reset her glasses. We 343 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:04.799 all do as we get older. But the next day, 344 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:07.680 flipping through the returned donations, I found the youth poetry 345 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:11.000 pamphlet I pocketed, tucked, insiged, a book mark marked Atlas 346 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:13.960 to be The evidence grew not just in memory, but 347 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:17.279 in physical things. Either the building was ropturing beneath or 348 00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:20.000 notice or memory itself was playing tricks beyond the counting. 349 00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:23.720 I held my tongue, but no longer my curiosity. Now. 350 00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:25.880 When I arrived for each shift, I set aside half 351 00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:28.960 my time for obtivation. I wandered corridors with the deliberate 352 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:31.279 care of zoologists, to test in each hypothesis, with the 353 00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:33.960 patience of many years in a quiet profession. I count 354 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:36.880 its steps, mark locations and colored pen traced over murals 355 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:38.880 and columns, and scratched telltale next into the edge of 356 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:41.440 one shelf, a code just for me, just in case. 357 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:45.440 Every evening, sometimes as a joke, sometimes for reassurance, I 358 00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:48.039 found myself humming bits of the old school librarian's coat. 359 00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:50.920 A place for everything, and everything in its place. But 360 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:54.839 here the places themselves refused to stay put. One rainy afternoon, 361 00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:57.960 just as thunder rolled like applause outside the library's great doors, 362 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:01.119 I ran into bed at the drop slot. Raindrops peppered 363 00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:04.160 his shoulders, and his tie was askew. He bounced three 364 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:07.319 boxes a clipboard under one arm. I watched as he 365 00:18:07.359 --> 00:18:10.839 checked off return's lips. Moving silently, I carried my findings 366 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:14.039 bravely that day, Ben, do you ever find it's strange 367 00:18:14.039 --> 00:18:17.119 how the building rearranges things? Ben didn't meet my eyes 368 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:19.680 at first. He fixed his gaze to the list, chewed 369 00:18:19.720 --> 00:18:22.039 his lower lip, then glanced around to make sure Margaret 370 00:18:22.039 --> 00:18:24.599 was out of ear. Shut he set the boxes down. 371 00:18:25.359 --> 00:18:27.839 You are you notice it too? His voice was so 372 00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:31.440 careful it might have meant nothing. Sometimes I'm absolutely convinced 373 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:33.759 I shalve something, even checked it twice, and then is 374 00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:36.759 gone or just moved. The ghost of a smile flickered. 375 00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:39.480 The other day, a left book in a social sciences 376 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:42.000 section came back an hour later, found it in Sports 377 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.400 and Leisure, like it had migrated by itself. Thought I 378 00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:47.839 was losing my mind. I leaned in tension, draining into amusement. 379 00:18:48.559 --> 00:18:50.359 So it's not just me with a shifty mental mat 380 00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:52.839 What about the stacks? Do you ever see the layouts themselves, 381 00:18:53.119 --> 00:18:57.440 not just the books moving? Ben exhaled sharply. God, Yes, 382 00:18:57.640 --> 00:19:00.200 just last week I went looking for the periodicals. Thought 383 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:01.799 they were by the south windows because that light is 384 00:19:01.839 --> 00:19:04.039 the best. Swere I remember Margaret saying something about it, 385 00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:06.000 but found them next to the stairwill I choked it 386 00:19:06.039 --> 00:19:09.079 up to first weak confusion. He glanced down at his shoes. 387 00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:13.039 But now that you mention it, it we both laughed quietly. 388 00:19:13.079 --> 00:19:16.359 Startled by relief, I asked, have you ever tried mapping 389 00:19:16.359 --> 00:19:18.319 what you see? I've got sketches that don't match any 390 00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:22.079 version I know. He grinned lighter. I tried once, but 391 00:19:22.119 --> 00:19:24.640 mine ended up looking more like a subwaymap. Sometimes I 392 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:27.119 dream about the building changing itself. I wake up convinced 393 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:29.960 I've just wandered through another impossible hallway. So it was 394 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:33.720 an only superstition, nor memories tricks. Perhaps some people were 395 00:19:33.720 --> 00:19:36.319 witnessed to the shifts, while most remained content with their 396 00:19:36.359 --> 00:19:39.839 received history. That possibility freed something inside me, a kind 397 00:19:39.839 --> 00:19:42.119 of kinship with Ben, and with Old Head, and even 398 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:44.599 with Missus Robinson, who'd stopped hunting for poultry on the 399 00:19:44.599 --> 00:19:48.000 mezzanine every other day. Determined to pursue this fleeting shared 400 00:19:48.039 --> 00:19:51.400 tension with reality, I next visited the archives. I half 401 00:19:51.400 --> 00:19:53.920