WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The glad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.080 are here. Let's get into it. If you'd asked me 3 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:13.320 last year, before I put away my trokim retired from 4 00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:15.119 Saint to Maybe's School, how long it would take to 5 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:17.519 walk from Arcove's room at Office seventeen in our town's 6 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:20.440 municipal hall. I would have given you precise answer, thirty 7 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:24.000 seconds forty at the outside if the janitors caught blocked 8 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.879 the corridor, or you stopped to nod at the painting 9 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:27.760 of Mayor Goertz, his class lifted in that of a 10 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:31.800 lasting vintage toast. Having prided myself on decades of punctuality 11 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:33.880 and the sword of spatial awareness that lets a person 12 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:36.000 find a lost paper clip in a clotter desk drawer, 13 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:38.960 I held a quiet faith and clarity measurable distances and 14 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:42.200 known spaces. No one prepares you for how odd familiarity 15 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:44.679 might feel after you stop running on bells and timetables. 16 00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:47.439 I began my new routine two weeks after my send 17 00:00:47.479 --> 00:00:50.240 off cake, volunteering on alternate mornings in the archives of 18 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.159 our ancient somewhat maze like city hall. It let me 19 00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:54.679 keep a foot in the life of order if on 20 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:57.679 the softer side of the clipboard. On Monday, I delivered 21 00:00:57.679 --> 00:01:00.600 the previous centuries census record folders heavy or coward cardboard 22 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:03.280 container's hand over hand from Archave's Room A along the 23 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:05.359 short spur of the old east wing, passed the little 24 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:08.319 side corridor with its once grand always dustich in the layer, 25 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:11.159 over the messaic tile floor, and directly to Office seventeen. 26 00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:14.280 Just as the building map in my volunteer packet promised, 27 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:17.159 the two rooms nestled side by side, almost sharing a wall. 28 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:20.400 Thirty seconds even with that awkward folder, and not a 29 00:01:20.439 --> 00:01:24.120 second waisted. Tuesday, the walk stretched inexplicably long. I must 30 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:26.439 have hesitated at the junction, I told myself, but I 31 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.439 made nothing of it. Yet on Thursday, following the exact 32 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:32.159 same errand at the same hour, my thirty seconds turned 33 00:01:32.159 --> 00:01:35.879 to nearly seven minutes, seven minutes during which time scened, 34 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:38.840 for lack of a better word, to lose traction. At first, 35 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:41.599 I blamed myself. Perhaps I paused to read a notice 36 00:01:41.640 --> 00:01:45.159 or chatter too long with Jonas, but I distinctly recalled then, and, 37 00:01:45.200 --> 00:01:48.319 after walking at sturdy pace, focused on getting the delivery down. 38 00:01:48.519 --> 00:01:51.879 Briefcase clutched shoes scuffing the old parquet in confident little paces. 39 00:01:52.519 --> 00:01:55.680 The hall was quiet. I remember passing the new staff 40 00:01:55.719 --> 00:01:57.920 Anne and Luccas only once by the door to the 41 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.799 west wing. When I reached Officer of I felt a 42 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:03.799 polite astonishment. Nothing had delayed me. Yet the clock ab 43 00:02:03.799 --> 00:02:05.920 of the door, one of those old fashioned namal jobs, 44 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:08.520 lovely and in practical, marked exactly seven minutes since I'd 45 00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:11.840 left Arcavey. I doubled back immediately, certain I must have 46 00:02:11.879 --> 00:02:15.159 lost track of myself, but I recognized every turning, every 47 00:02:15.159 --> 00:02:18.000 crack in the stone baseboard, every frame charter on the wall. 48 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:20.039 Yet a bend in the corridor appeared where I'd sworn 49 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:23.000 there was none worse. The old portrait of meyer Gertz, 50 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:25.439 the ever cheerful, was tilted at a new two sangle 51 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:27.439 catching corridor, a light like a glare from a waiter 52 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:29.879 with a secret the map pin next to the stay. 53 00:02:29.879 --> 00:02:32.159 While the same diagram I'd used showed no such bend, 54 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:35.199 Yet I had just walked it. The stone felt real 55 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:37.960 under my hand. The door handle stuttered its little hint 56 00:02:37.960 --> 00:02:41.599 of resistance, exactly as it always had. For several minutes, 57 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:44.159 I stood between the two doors, hand on the lack outward, 58 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:46.919 caught in a beginner's mixture of a knees and growing curiosity, 59 00:02:47.719 --> 00:02:50.319 such things should not shift in a day. I hunted 60 00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:53.280 for a physical explanation, heat warping perception, new paint or 61 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:56.960 rearranged plant, but nothing fit. The space, it seemed, had 62 00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:00.719 quietly and inexplicably rearranged itself just enough to be undeniable. 63 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:04.240 I did not rush to confide this to anyone. Practical people, 64 00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:07.000 especially the former principal sort, do not leave at phantasms. 65 00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:10.000 But as I walked the familiar rooms, stacks of papers 66 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:12.120 in hand, I could not shake the impression that, far 67 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:14.560 more than misremembering, the building itself had lent me a 68 00:03:14.599 --> 00:03:17.639 new geography to consider out han Haull stands at the 69 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:20.120 crossroads of two main streets that bear both pretentious and 70 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:23.479 laughably little names, Market Lane and Church Street. The building 71 00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:26.759 itself is a contradiction of errors. Its oldest bones date 72 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:29.919 some late medieval century, with the carches and windowless buttresses 73 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:33.159 that have long now grown their original defensive purpose. Later 74 00:03:33.199 --> 00:03:36.360 wings unfold and baroque flourishes, every corner adorned with encuondruent, 75 00:03:36.439 --> 00:03:39.800 decoratively excessive embellishments, and finally, the cocked out the pride 76 00:03:39.800 --> 00:03:42.000 of the once rich iron merchant guild pins the whole 77 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:44.919 structure into a rather wind batter unity. When I toured 78 00:03:44.919 --> 00:03:48.039 my first volunteer shift, Missus Eckart, the head archivist, swept 79 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:49.879 me through the ground floor in a bustle of precise 80 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:53.319 instruction and half affectionate jibs about keeping up. She is, 81 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:55.520 in her own way, the Hull's best map, A straight 82 00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:58.039 batwoman with clipped hair, reading glasses on a chain that 83 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:01.479 swing perilously over yellowed index cards. She has a mind 84 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:03.319 like a steel trap. A steel traps were powered by 85 00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:07.719 fiend and sharpened decades of self expectation. Jonahs, the facility manager, 86 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:10.840 is her informal opposite, jovial, always pausing for chat, hands 87 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:13.520 forever in his pockets, and keys rattling like a percussion instrument. 88 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:16.560 The volunteers of whom I was the latest and possibly 89 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.399 the most transparent about my need for routine span the spectrum. 90 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:22.160 Anna and lucas young and practical, kept mostly to the 91 00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:25.560 unromantic New West wing, bright insulated offices with uniformed doors 92 00:04:25.560 --> 00:04:28.360 and modern signage. I had the odd sense they regarded 93 00:04:28.399 --> 00:04:31.040 as sea, swring loyalists as creatures of habit or nostalgia, 94 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:34.000 or both. The building exceeds a blend of old and new. 95 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:37.000 It lived in contradiction that until now felt more charming 96 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:40.040 than suspect. The town's people seemed to love its quirks 97 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:42.079 at doorway and knee hide off the service stairs, a 98 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:45.040 tiny barred window opening over the chief Accountant's desk. Plaques 99 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:48.680 in three languages, two now extinct. But there is alongside 100 00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:51.399 this affection a prevailing faith in order. The Calendar Committee's 101 00:04:51.399 --> 00:04:53.399 minutes must be filed by the tenth. The west wall 102 00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:56.079 polished before Foundo's date. The bell rung precisely at noon 103 00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:59.480 and five. My own pride, I must confess, followed this template. 104 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:02.279 I did not volunteer to relive my old fiefto more 105 00:05:02.279 --> 00:05:04.800 maintain power, but for the pleasure, yes, pleasure of keeping 106 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:07.319 things ship shaped, accounted for and functioning, even if at 107 00:05:07.319 --> 00:05:12.560 a loving removed from policy or politics, sorting delivering recording clarity. 108 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:15.519 As the weeks kept pace, I found myself watching the 109 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:19.040 wall maps more closely. Each landing, each hall was sported 110 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:21.680 its own, not always matching version of the plan. A 111 00:05:21.759 --> 00:05:25.920 gradient of changes, some subtle some plainly inexplicable. I'd see 112 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:28.680 the east wings outline blue tapped beside a fire extinguisher, 113 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:30.959 but walk the length only to find a window misplaced, 114 00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:33.879 or the restrooms distant stretched above the doors to the 115 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:36.560 main archive engraved on a strip of heavy brass, stretched 116 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:39.879 the enigmatic maxim scribed to the original architect clockmaker time 117 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:42.639 reveals the true shape of passage. No one seems to 118 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:45.680 read that inscription any more. Perhaps I was the last 119 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:48.079 to find it, and perhaps I only let myself notice 120 00:05:48.079 --> 00:05:51.120 because of what followed. That first anomaly with the corridor, 121 00:05:51.160 --> 00:05:53.560 the route elongated underfoot sat as a little bur in 122 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:57.160 my mind. I considered forgetting it. But the next morning, 123 00:05:57.240 --> 00:05:59.399 with a ledger of oddities barely cold, I made a 124 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:02.040 point of retreat my steps from archievetof for seventeen with 125 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:05.160 exaggerated care, timing myself against my wrist wash, not my phone, 126 00:06:05.319 --> 00:06:08.720 for such occasions demand analog's seriousness. The journey took me 127 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:11.800 thirty eight seconds, not the thirty I remembered from my 128 00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:15.600 first trips, nor the seven minutes of the previous day. Confuse, 129 00:06:15.759 --> 00:06:19.079 I paused at each intersection, I made notes. There again 130 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:21.399 was the same odd kink but this time it seemed 131 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:24.680 less pronounced. I marked my route with the small pencil 132 00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:27.040 decks at each turn, referencing the copy of the municipal 133 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.360 hall diagram provided in my volunteer packet. Yet as I 134 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:33.160 moved a stocking slowly, now suspecting some fault in myself, 135 00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:36.600 I registered more alterations. The stairwell around the corner from 136 00:06:36.639 --> 00:06:41.000 the archives should appear after the wide window overlooking the square. Instead, 137 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:43.240 I found a glass double doll leading to what appeared 138 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:45.800 briefly to be a screening room, though the space behind 139 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:48.160 the glass was empty and dark as a closed eye socket. 140 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:51.079 I stopped in the hallway, debated my own credibility, and 141 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:54.079 returned to the archive. Turning the route over in my head, 142 00:06:54.279 --> 00:06:56.279 I sketched the shape from memory onto a note bed 143 00:06:56.360 --> 00:06:59.959 five turns, two corridors, one landing, repeating the walk again 144 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.199 in an hour later, this time with a folder under 145 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:04.759 one arm. As an impromptu navigation test, I counted off 146 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:06.680 the steps, noting the length of time it took for 147 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:09.759 three different routes. To my growing bafflement, none of my 148 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:13.279 three attempts produced the same configuration. Sometimes, the painted out 149 00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:15.600 to way lund up after a mere eight pieces sometimes 150 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:18.319 not until at least twenty The number of doors facing 151 00:07:18.399 --> 00:07:21.360 the corridor shifted, first two, then three, one a marked. 152 00:07:21.959 --> 00:07:24.560 On the third attempt, the double doors vanished, replaced by 153 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:26.920 a new stretch of painted well hung with an uncharacteristically 154 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:30.639 modern poster about recycling town of Cartridges. By Friday, I 155 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:33.399 had begun keeping a log, scribbling times and turn counts. 156 00:07:33.959 --> 00:07:37.319 Some trips took just under a minute, others stretched past five, 157 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.319 even when I paused to listen to mark out every feature. 158 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:42.560 As I passed, something would jump, a gap, a door 159 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:44.279 would shift, a window would offer a view of the 160 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:46.519 same square at a new angle. Knock quite as I recalled. 161 00:07:47.160 --> 00:07:50.279 Seeking reassurance, or perhaps the gentle correction of another adult, 162 00:07:50.279 --> 00:07:52.920 I confided in a roundabout way the problem to Jones. 163 00:07:53.639 --> 00:07:56.240 He chuckled, Oh of the old, long and short of it. 164 00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:58.519 That corridor has been playing tricks since my apprentice days. 165 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:00.759 As the mayor says, he wants a rout fifteen minutes 166 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:03.279 early for a meeting by accident. But that's just old buildings, 167 00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:06.600 isn't it. I did not argue, but inside I recoiled. 168 00:08:07.199 --> 00:08:09.600 I'd spend years persuading students to attend to the world 169 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:12.079 as it was, not as they fancied. I couldn't accept 170 00:08:12.120 --> 00:08:15.600 that my mind, unaided supplied this much trickery. So I 171 00:08:15.639 --> 00:08:18.560 timed and diagram again and again. Convinced now of some 172 00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:22.120 external force a playwether in architecture, maintenance or human habit 173 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:25.800 that weekend. Unable to let it rest, a recruited misserse Ekkhark, 174 00:08:25.879 --> 00:08:29.639 Queen of thousand inflappable composure, for a practical experiment. We 175 00:08:29.720 --> 00:08:33.080 met early Monday, before any bustle could interfere the plan. 176 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:36.120 Each of us would walk independently from arcover to Office seventeen, 177 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.080 recording both time and route, circling familiar landmarks on a 178 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:41.759 printed map I'd borrowed from a staff guide book. We 179 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:44.639 agreed on three trips, one together, when each solo, swapping 180 00:08:44.679 --> 00:08:48.320 notes only. At the end. Missessekhark, never won to be rattled, 181 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:51.120 took her notebook with a small half, wagged her glasses 182 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:53.919 at me, and declared, let's see what ghost you've stirred up. 183 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:58.240 Then first we walked together. The route felt mostly as expected, 184 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:01.159 to two straight corridors, brief cove passed the infamous Mayor 185 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:03.200 Garret in his tilted fray, and through the short archway 186 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:06.440 and into office seventeen. We finished in forty five seconds, 187 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:09.639 side by side. See she ain't hone, and I felt 188 00:09:09.679 --> 00:09:12.279 heap prick on my cheeks. But then we each walked 189 00:09:12.279 --> 00:09:15.840 it alone. My solo journey, moving with intentional, measured steps, 190 00:09:15.879 --> 00:09:18.879 took nearly two minutes. At one point, I passed what 191 00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:20.919 I was sure was a new alcove with a vase 192 00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:24.159 of plastic daffodils I had never seen before on Messess. 193 00:09:24.159 --> 00:09:27.039 I cut solo attempt. She emerged just after me, alarmed. 194 00:09:27.639 --> 00:09:29.679 Did you see the stained glass window with the foxes, 195 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:33.360 she asked. I frowned that there is, or should be, 196 00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:36.559 no stained glass window on that route. We compared our 197 00:09:36.559 --> 00:09:39.799 marked maps. House included the foxes, my map had the 198 00:09:39.840 --> 00:09:42.320 vase alcove, and both featured a shore corridor that did 199 00:09:42.360 --> 00:09:45.799 not exist on the guide plan. Reviewing the official building plan, 200 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.240 we realized neither of us had followed the path as 201 00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:51.840 it appeared on paper. Determined now we Fesjonas asked him 202 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:55.080 out right what was his preferred route. Amused, he pulled 203 00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:57.519 out a tattered maintenance map and drew a surprisingly direct 204 00:09:57.519 --> 00:09:59.720 line from archive through the staff lounge, then down a 205 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:01.960 stair well that, as far as I recalled, had been 206 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:05.240 closed for years. He used to be quicker before the renovations. 207 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.600 But if you know the right angle, sometimes you find 208 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:10.720 it again. I've passed him to show me. We set 209 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:13.279 out together, and for one weird moment I lost my bearings. 210 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:16.159 Jonas seemed certain he'd found the short cut, but half 211 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:18.440 well long, we landed in a corridor lined with all 212 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:21.879 paper's faces. I didn't recognize, nor did he. When we 213 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:23.960 doubled back, we ended up blipping into the hole we 214 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:25.679 just outside the west wing, a eater I could not 215 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:29.679 have taken by accident. That afternoon, emboldened or perhaps desperate, 216 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:31.879 I tested an observation made in passing the day before. 217 00:10:31.919 --> 00:10:34.279 A window which I recalled offering a sunny view over 218 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:36.519 the bakery now looked out on an unfamiliar little stone 219 00:10:36.519 --> 00:10:40.840 square dominated by dry mossy fountain. Perhaps you misremembered, missus 220 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:44.000 Eckhart ventured when I described it to her. We returned together. 221 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:46.559 Now the window overlooked recycling bins and a loading duck, 222 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:49.840 and congruously and tied fetching Anna and Lucas from the 223 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:52.120 west wind. In case eth or novelty offered insight. I 224 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:54.639 tried to sound casual. Have you ever noticed oddities in 225 00:10:54.679 --> 00:10:57.440 the buildings? Lay it? I no, last thumbed her phone. 226 00:10:57.919 --> 00:10:59.960 My GPS never gets a fix in hib always say 227 00:11:00.039 --> 00:11:03.399 as I mustside in the car park. Lucas more Earnest 228 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:05.759 told me the walking distance charts he'd been given for 229 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:09.279 orientation didn't match the actual measured steps. This place is 230 00:11:09.320 --> 00:11:11.559 bigger on paper than it is in my legs, he concluded, 231 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:13.840 by way of summary. When I said none of my 232 00:11:13.960 --> 00:11:17.720 rats aligned with the map, Anna shrugged. Maybe someone updated 233 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:20.720 a building without updating the plan. But her eyes lingered 234 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:22.440 a half beat too long on the floor, as though 235 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:25.600 she sometimes doubted the explanation herself. In the weeks that 236 00:11:25.679 --> 00:11:28.799 followed my routine acquired a new appendage, a navigation journal. 237 00:11:29.399 --> 00:11:31.720 Every day I recorded not just the time and steps 238 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:34.399 between the ark having room and Office seventeen, but changes 239 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:37.799 in landmarks, distances, and the flavor of each journey. Hurried 240 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:42.080 or relaxed, deliberate or distracted. New inconsistencies became the norm. 241 00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:45.039 Some days the wrought rank on others it expanded with 242 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:47.919 uprime or reason. I found myself hoping or not without 243 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:50.080 ironed as some one else would soon complain the silence 244 00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:52.240 of the others fell at moments more troubling than any 245 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:54.799 single shifting wall. It was after a week and a 246 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:56.759 half of this shouting columns and lines of my own 247 00:11:56.759 --> 00:11:59.320 idiosyncratic data, that a shop a pattern, if you could 248 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:01.519 call it, that began to resolve among the thicket of notes. 249 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:05.399 The discrepancies I gradually noticed obeyed a principle outside mere 250 00:12:05.519 --> 00:12:08.679 architecture or error. It wasn't which corridor I took, or 251 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.399 even whether I was tired or alert. Rather, at the 252 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:14.080 distance seemed to shrink When I walked slowly, focusing on 253 00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:17.600 each step, rushing distracted by mentalists of the urge not 254 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:19.960 to be late for the morning record's review. He elongated 255 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.360 the route and unexpected ways. I began suspecting the building 256 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:26.039 responded to me, or more precisely, to my state of mind. 257 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:29.120 On days of reflection or common tension, the walk between 258 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:32.480 Nuciva and Office seventeen would compress, sometimes featuring new shortcuts 259 00:12:32.559 --> 00:12:36.440 or a familiar door in an unfamiliar place. Unhurried, scattered days, 260 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:40.120 the corridor complicated itself, kinking, twisting, protracting the journey, all 261 00:12:40.159 --> 00:12:44.240 without my conscious assent. Intreatment, I confess delighted in the puzzle. 262 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:47.600 I revisited my navigation journal in search of confirmation. At 263 00:12:47.639 --> 00:12:50.399 the top of the table for Monday two minutes four doorways, 264 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:55.120 Wednesday forty seconds three next day nearly six minutes seven 265 00:12:55.159 --> 00:12:58.960 doors detO through the portrait corridor. The variance was not random, 266 00:12:59.039 --> 00:13:02.600 but almost participate. On a quiet Thursday, I was startled 267 00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:05.360 to discover an old pamphlet while sorting town meeting records. 268 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:08.799 At first glance, I thought that an accidental inclusion. Its 269 00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:11.320 yellowed paper and looping script marked it as older than most. 270 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:14.120 But the title saw Clear's inc A guide to our 271 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:16.440 town Hall for new clerks, with notes by the architect. 272 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:19.519 I read, heart bumping a page of the clock maker 273 00:13:19.639 --> 00:13:23.159 architect's own hand among the scattered suggestions, never run in 274 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:25.159 the gallery, think kindly of the south stairs. He had 275 00:13:25.159 --> 00:13:28.039 scribbled a passage here, copied verbatim. Rooms approach as one 276 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:30.279 draws nearer in mind, let no map bind vision and 277 00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:33.519 nearly passage is a function of intent and purpose. What 278 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:35.960 on earth did that mean? Was this simply the airy 279 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:39.000 philosophy of an eccentric cotmaker, or a practical warning disguise 280 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:42.759 as poetry. I hurried to the archived desk summary in hand. 281 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:46.159 Missseeka turned the pamphlet over thoughtfully when assured her the 282 00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:48.720 line he built half the east wing as an experiment 283 00:13:48.720 --> 00:13:52.279 in arranging focus. She said, I always thought the walls 284 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:54.000 know if you have a purpose, or at least that's 285 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.399 what Jonas says. I challenged her. Surely that's just saying 286 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:02.000 buildings aren't conscious. She paused, lips first, then shrugged. Maybe not, 287 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:04.720 but people are more involved in the surroundings than they realized. 288 00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:06.879 Just because its art doesn't mean it's supernatural. You know. 289 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:08.960 Perhaps the building is in a monic amaze meant to 290 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:11.799 keep you awake. Her words made sense, but nothing about 291 00:14:11.799 --> 00:14:14.480 this felt that tidy. The more I tested, the less 292 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:18.159 confident I became that my confusion was entirely self made. However, 293 00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:20.799 the following days, my challenge evolved from simple mapping to 294 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:23.039 a kind of mental piloting experiment, and consciously with how 295 00:14:23.080 --> 00:14:25.960 my attention altered the walk. On mornings, when I rehearsed 296 00:14:25.960 --> 00:14:28.360 speeches or shopping lists in my head, the corridor stretched. 297 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:31.919 If instead, I worked with quiet focus, adding the mission 298 00:14:31.919 --> 00:14:33.960 of carrying files be my only concern. The way grew 299 00:14:33.960 --> 00:14:36.799 short and gentle. I started to think of the building 300 00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:39.360 as a living system, at bone, shifting to accommodate, or 301 00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:43.399 perhaps reflect, whoever wound threw them. One chilly afternoon, just 302 00:14:43.399 --> 00:14:45.679 as the town bell was wavering into the three o'clock chime, 303 00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:47.879 I found myself drawn toward the baes of the Club Tower, 304 00:14:47.919 --> 00:14:50.240 a spot I seldom visited unless the arcads required a 305 00:14:50.279 --> 00:14:53.080 stack of city council minutes from decades ago to day, 306 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:56.240 though the corridor's geometry, or maybe my own curiosity, nudged 307 00:14:56.240 --> 00:14:58.519 me that way. Past the long arch of the old 308 00:14:58.519 --> 00:15:01.200 finance offices, a feint taking became audible, a different kind 309 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:04.039 of ticking from the official clock, which was currently being serviced, 310 00:15:04.039 --> 00:15:06.240 and whose silence had come to notice almost as much 311 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:09.519 as its usual brass regularity. The quiet pulse was neither 312 00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:12.360 perfectly even, nor I thought, in any way mechanically normal. 313 00:15:12.919 --> 00:15:15.600 Sometimes it quickened, sometimes it stretched like a ground for 314 00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:17.759 the clock's pendulum. At the mercy of some one else's 315 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:20.519 notion of time, I approached a small alcove at the 316 00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:22.919 cradle of the tower, a spot generally empty except for 317 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:25.919 an assuming bench. The tick seemed to thicken around me. 318 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:28.960 If I stood near the far wall. The sound washed 319 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:32.639 up in double strokes, distant, then rashing, then distant again. 320 00:15:33.159 --> 00:15:35.600 I tested its riddum against my watch, unable to match 321 00:15:35.639 --> 00:15:39.480 it to any quarter hour. Without warning, Jonah's materialized behind me, 322 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:43.120 jangling his keys. You've found the spot, he said, as 323 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:46.600 if congratulating me on a puzzle box opening. I half laughed. 324 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:50.159 Why does a tick like that? It depends when you're listening. 325 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:51.919 When I was a kid, my uncle would walk me 326 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:54.000 here after hours, said, if you stood on the right 327 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.320 patch of tile, you'd feel the building's hot beat instead 328 00:15:56.320 --> 00:15:58.440 of the cocks some folk call at the clockmaker's short. 329 00:15:58.480 --> 00:15:59.960 But the way you can get where you're headed, without 330 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:01.960 knowing how or why. I tried to find it again 331 00:16:02.039 --> 00:16:04.879 last winter, but it's gone, or I am He leaned 332 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:08.360 on the wall, expression suddenly more thoughtful and jovial. The 333 00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:11.320 staff talk about the whole shifting sometimes usually you only 334 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:15.360 notice if relate. I listened. It must have been trick acoustics, 335 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:18.279 the echo playing off stone and memory. But for a moment, 336 00:16:18.360 --> 00:16:21.759 standing still as January branches, I felt something unsteady about time. 337 00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:25.600 My own breathing slowed. The second seemed to swirl inside 338 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:28.799 my chest, long and contracted. At once. I told journers 339 00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:31.159 about the notation in the pamphlet of the architect's pronouncement 340 00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:36.200 about intention and passage. He chuckled. I never met the man, obviously, 341 00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:38.519 but silent about bride for an old eccentric still, and 342 00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:40.639 here he shrugged away the rest, as though some things 343 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:44.200 should remain between stones. Later that day, craving order A 344 00:16:44.279 --> 00:16:47.320 requested authorization to review the buildings are cut. Four plans. 345 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:52.039 The custodian vestry battered portfolios from, he said, obstinate decades 346 00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:55.320 when the building reinvented itself. Each was a thing of beauty. 347 00:16:55.360 --> 00:16:58.600 In discord, the plans from the early nineteenth century made 348 00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:02.120 sense at first glance, then goard with impossible proportions. The 349 00:17:02.200 --> 00:17:04.680 nineteen twenties copy showed wings and court juds that had 350 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:08.599 never existed, were at least never simultaneously. The most recent 351 00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:11.160 plan had entire wings crossed out and new annotations scrolled 352 00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:14.880 in deaf in incs. I paid carefully for amendment after amendment, 353 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:18.279 a puzzle box of changing intentions and claims. Notes by 354 00:17:18.319 --> 00:17:21.279 former building managers reconciled the plans with the dry finality 355 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:24.640 of bureaucracy. South's Stowe realigned see Amendment be minus four 356 00:17:24.799 --> 00:17:27.599 archery to be left in place, despite engineer objections. Per 357 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:31.680 council decision, each correction seemed to authorize some gentle eccentricity, 358 00:17:31.880 --> 00:17:34.799 never quite a race in what came before. Sitting late, 359 00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:37.039 the street lights outside just starting to color the square, 360 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.359 I stared at the three plans and scentsed with mounting 361 00:17:39.400 --> 00:17:42.680 certainty that the inconsistencies of sand a space of memory 362 00:17:42.680 --> 00:17:46.720 were not simple quarks. They had been noticed, justified, even codified, 363 00:17:46.759 --> 00:17:50.119 cross generations. To each new staff or builder, the wholes 364 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:52.279 blend of the known and the unpredictable was understood not 365 00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:54.720 as a fall, but as part of its unspoken contract. 366 00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:57.119 By the end of that day, my sense of the 367 00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:59.200 building and my place in it had tilted into a 368 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:02.680 quietly perilling on certainty the hall was not only unpredictable, 369 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:06.160 but intentionally so, a kind of participatory system, responsive perhaps 370 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:08.720 to the mind itself. I lay in bed that night, 371 00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:11.440 listening to the familiar night quiet of my house, wondering 372 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:14.559 what exactly I had stumbled into. Not a haunted place, No, 373 00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:17.680 that wasn't it. For curiosity, not fear bloomed in my chest, 374 00:18:17.720 --> 00:18:19.640 but a place made for the quietly unsettled, for those 375 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:21.720 willing to pay attention, who sensed that their own intention 376 00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:23.799 might fold a few meters of corridor out of the day. 377 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:26.599 What else in my life, I wondered, had been quietly 378 00:18:26.599 --> 00:18:29.480 shifting around me, making way for whatever story I needed 379 00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:31.759 to walk at the time I worked the next morning, 380 00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:33.680 oddly reluctant to leave my house, less for fear of 381 00:18:33.720 --> 00:18:35.680 what I might find in the municipal hall, more for 382 00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:38.599 what I might now expect to or overlook. The corridors 383 00:18:38.599 --> 00:18:41.319 of the building had lodged themselves into my mind, replaying 384 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:43.519 with the same loving uncertainty as a dream. Only half 385 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:46.559 a cold, every decision to rise but an assured tie 386 00:18:46.599 --> 00:18:49.440 walking shoe. These felt transparently like rituals, but I did 387 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:52.079 them more carefully, more deliberately, as though in anticipation of 388 00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:55.000 being observed or quietly responded to. By mid day, I 389 00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:57.319 found myself at the town hall gates, the sunlight picking 390 00:18:57.359 --> 00:18:59.200 out the clash of viers in the brickwork, the upper 391 00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:03.000 windows glaring down like coded eyes. I imagined absurdly that 392 00:19:03.079 --> 00:19:06.200 it waited, considering which version of itself to reveal, depending 393 00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:09.519 on how I chose to enter inside. The building was humming, 394 00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:12.480 not physically, though the old radiators thumped in their own 395 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:14.799 syncopated rumble, and some one was shaving the pocket with 396 00:19:14.839 --> 00:19:17.319 the wet mop ner reception, but in its undercurrent of life. 397 00:19:17.799 --> 00:19:20.559 Staff bustled through the lobby. Anna and Lucas debated with Missus. 398 00:19:20.599 --> 00:19:23.240 I caught about a misplaced in his folder. Joonas, pausing 399 00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:25.599 long enough to wink at me, retreated with a tool 400 00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:29.119 box into the closet under the stairs. Everyone seemed comfortable 401 00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:31.759