WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.519 Hollo, I mokan stories all the time. Glad you are here. 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:10.039 Let's get into it. 3 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:14.640 I was returning a borrowed volume Helen Keller's second Biography 4 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:17.920 on a Wednesday, because I always returned books on Wednesdays. 5 00:00:18.399 --> 00:00:21.399 I just stepped into the nonfiction wing books snug under 6 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:23.960 my arm, when I was arrested by an odd sense 7 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:28.120 of perspective. The southern wall, I suddenly realized, did not 8 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:31.719 run true. At first, the ark was so subtle, I 9 00:00:31.719 --> 00:00:34.240 thought it might be fatigue or the trick of late 10 00:00:34.359 --> 00:00:38.479 afternoon sun sifting through the tall bay windows. But I 11 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:42.079 walked a little farther, trailing fingers along the rough plaster, 12 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:45.240 and the wall's angle bent out, as if the room 13 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:49.439 were swelling, giving up straight lines. There had always been 14 00:00:49.520 --> 00:00:53.240 peculiarities here, of course, This library was a patchwork of 15 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:57.039 expansions and repairs by fundraising committees that would never have 16 00:00:57.079 --> 00:00:59.359 agreed with each other had they met face to face. 17 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:03.280 But this curve not quite a proper arc, more a suggestion, 18 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:08.079 half an idea, wasn't familiar. I stopped squinting along the 19 00:01:08.079 --> 00:01:11.760 scene between wall and floor to confirm the odd geometry. 20 00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:16.599 That's when I noticed the library's rolling book cart, normally 21 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:20.000 stationed no more than five paces from the reference desk, 22 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:23.959 it now sat nearly twice that, near the magazine rack, 23 00:01:24.319 --> 00:01:28.519 where the carpet grew threadbare. Under the windows. Sammy, the 24 00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:32.239 circulation clerk, arms as long as his good humor was 25 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:35.280 nowhere to be seen. Just then the reference desk was 26 00:01:35.319 --> 00:01:38.560 empty for the moment, its little brass bell reflecting stray 27 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:41.640 beams of sunlight. The rest of the space thrummed with 28 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:45.000 a comfortable midweek energy. A woman in a moss green 29 00:01:45.159 --> 00:01:49.359 pea coat scanning microfiche, two teenagers trading quips at the printer, 30 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:53.040 the heavy breath of the climate control competing with bird 31 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:58.040 song from the garden side doors. Everything else felt properly itself, 32 00:01:58.439 --> 00:02:01.000 so much so that the cart's dis placement and the 33 00:02:01.079 --> 00:02:05.159 wall's curve should have been trivial. But something in me stirred. 34 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:09.680 I told myself, architecture is full of unintentional illusion. This 35 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:12.400 is a civic building, not a work of art. Some 36 00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:15.599 one moved the cart. I was, above all, a retired 37 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:18.360 math teacher and a keeper of neat routines, but with 38 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:21.960 an admitted soft spot for patterns and their delightful exceptions. 39 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:24.840 As I slotted the biography on to its shelf, I 40 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:28.159 tried to recall whether, on my last visit this wall 41 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:32.199 felt crooked, or the cart so misplaced I could not, 42 00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:36.680 Even though I claimed pride in my reliable memory, I 43 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:41.039 marked it mentally checked to morrow more precisely. On my 44 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:44.120 way out, as I passed the arched window that sometimes 45 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:48.719 only sometimes overlooked the children's court yard, I paused. The 46 00:02:48.759 --> 00:02:53.159 glass caught my reflection, a balding, bespectacled man whose keenest 47 00:02:53.159 --> 00:02:56.280 habit was to find interest where others saw only dust 48 00:02:56.439 --> 00:03:00.919 or repetition. The curve behind me seemed to disappear unremarkable 49 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:03.960 in the frame. If there was anything truly odd, it 50 00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:07.919 hid as comfortably as a childhood secret. I did not 51 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.319 say anything to Missus Barton, who sat behind the circulation 52 00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:15.520 counter cataloging returns, nor to Missus Trudeau, who was elbow 53 00:03:15.560 --> 00:03:19.400 deep in a stack of genealogy indexes by the east staircase. 54 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:23.319 Perhaps I felt that naming a curiosity so fragile might 55 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:27.560 cause it to vanish, or worse, solidify into some embarrassing 56 00:03:27.639 --> 00:03:31.840 oversight of my own. That evening after supper, I caught 57 00:03:31.879 --> 00:03:34.599 myself sketching a crude floor plan of the non fiction 58 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:37.800 room from memory, I drew the southern wall as straight 59 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:41.680 as always hesitated, and then added a slight bulge midway, 60 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:45.560 as if the building had exhaled. I underlined the question 61 00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:50.000 bent or only remembered? So the library was one of 62 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:53.280 my fixed points, the kind that kept your days legible, 63 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:57.039 gave a man's shape. I had, over the years become 64 00:03:57.080 --> 00:03:59.680 one of those regulars who was both a fixture and 65 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:04.800 mostly invisible. Every local branch has its parade of retaiyr regulars. 66 00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:08.439 Mine just happened to include a mathematician with a quiet 67 00:04:08.439 --> 00:04:12.800 obsession for things that almost didn't fit. The following day, 68 00:04:12.919 --> 00:04:16.480 I kept my routine. After breakfast and the paper, I 69 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.240 walked the tree lined path that cut from Willow Street 70 00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:22.439 to the broad steps of the main entrance. The building 71 00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:25.800 in daylight had all the measured grandeur of early twentieth 72 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:30.879 century civic construction. Limestone facade, a mismatched pair of bronze 73 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:34.160 lamps flanking the doors, a mural above the lintel of 74 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:38.879 pioneers and books inside. The smells always hit you first, 75 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:43.079 aged paper, lemon oil, a note of must, and electric ozen. 76 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:46.040 Each wing of the library was a different decade stitched 77 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:48.720 on to the next. The children's alcove wrapped in a 78 00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:52.480 rainbow of painted animals, most fading near the corners. Reading 79 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:56.519 rooms lined with mismatched pillars, their capitals all carved differently. 80 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:01.040 Staircases made of sharply veined green marble, then suddenly turning 81 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:05.759 to painted metal alcoves adorned with memorial plaques commemorating long 82 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:10.240 gone donors. I sidestepped Sammy, who nearly collided with me 83 00:05:10.279 --> 00:05:12.800 as he bustled from the staff room to the interlibrary 84 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:17.000 lone counter, a tottering stack balanced on one hip. Sammy 85 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:19.639 always moved, as if someone had challenged him to reach 86 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:22.920 both ends of the library in less than a minute. Morning, 87 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:26.480 mister Haskins, want the paper, the crosswords rough to day? 88 00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:31.279 He winked, vanishing behind a book tower. I waved him 89 00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:33.319 off and took my seat at the corner table. I 90 00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:36.480 preferred the one nearest the old mural of a ship 91 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:39.759 unfurling its sails. The paint faded to a suggestion of 92 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:43.560 ochre and indigo. There I was comfortably close to the 93 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:47.279 magazine rack and equal distant from the nonfiction wing and 94 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:52.360 missus Barton's desk, familiar places mapped by boot, leather and habit. 95 00:05:53.439 --> 00:05:57.920 My companions in routine were already established. Missus Trudeau combing 96 00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:02.600 through county census rolls for Historic Society newsletter, Mister Ellery, 97 00:06:02.759 --> 00:06:05.600 who carried a bag of pens, each with a partially 98 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:09.959 completed crossword tucked through its cap. Miss Castle hunched over 99 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.839 her scrap book station, scissors flashing, Her glasses perched on 100 00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:17.839 her forehead like an extra decorative set of eyes. It 101 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:21.800 was Missus Trudeau's voice, a dry alto murmur that drew 102 00:06:21.839 --> 00:06:24.160 my attention as she brushed her palm along a low 103 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:28.439 shelf of city directories. I didn't catch the beginning, only 104 00:06:28.839 --> 00:06:32.360 this corner moved again, half under her breath, followed by 105 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:35.199 a small, amused shake of her head as she wiped 106 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:38.319 a skim of dust from her palm. It was an 107 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:43.199 odd phrase, delivered without expectation of being heard. I almost 108 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:45.879 interrupted to ask what she meant, but she had already 109 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:51.319 subsided into her research, humming softly. If this library was strange, 110 00:06:51.560 --> 00:06:54.439 it was the slow, familiar strangeness of old buildings or 111 00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:59.199 old friendships. I'd spent years navigating its idiosyncrasies. Steering my 112 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:01.560 cane around the world. One spot in the tiled corridor 113 00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:05.360 that always snagged, tracing deetours through the short cut by 114 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:09.279 the maintenance closet, where the wall narrowed without warning, never 115 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:13.120 giving much credence to their root causes. What were odd nooks, 116 00:07:13.319 --> 00:07:17.040 but the ordinary signature of time, misuse, and human design. 117 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:21.160 Still the detail pricked at me. I listened closely at 118 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:24.240 lunch as Miss Cassele heaped her tray with carrot sticks 119 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:27.560 and celery, complaining about how the community room's window had 120 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:31.040 sprouted a draft so sharp it frizzed her glue stick. 121 00:07:31.639 --> 00:07:35.199 Mister Ellery interjected with a sly observation about a window 122 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:38.240 that used to open onto the roof but doesn't any more. 123 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:42.160 The conversation meandered toward the weather and was soon lost. 124 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:47.199 The longer I listened, the clearer the realization the library's 125 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:51.000 quirks had become part of the social furniture, hardly discussed 126 00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:55.720 but curiously consistent. By my next visit two days later, 127 00:07:56.040 --> 00:07:59.639 I was ready to test my own reliability. I approached 128 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:03.319 the south wall in the non fiction section, slowly, cane 129 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:06.240 in hand, the map from two nights prior fresh in 130 00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:11.560 my mind. The wall stood perfectly straight. I frowned. Checked 131 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:14.639 the angle along the carpet seam. It ran true edge 132 00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:17.879 to edge, no bend, no arc. Had I simply invented 133 00:08:17.879 --> 00:08:22.000 the curve, or worse, misremembered my initial drawing. I pulled 134 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:24.639 my little note book, now a habit, from my pocket, 135 00:08:24.839 --> 00:08:28.120 flipped to the earlier sketch, and compared the shape. There 136 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:32.039 It was my drawn slightly bowed southern wall set against 137 00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:35.639 a straight one. In reality, the book cart sat by 138 00:08:35.639 --> 00:08:39.080 the far window, But this time the window itself was different. 139 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:43.320 The sill was broader, as if deepened by a recent refurbishment, 140 00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:46.720 and outside I glimpsed a row of boxwood hedges that 141 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:50.039 hadn't been there last week. I walked toward the cart. 142 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:54.080 It was filled with biographies, gardening books, and a stack 143 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:58.399 of magazines that hadn't appeared on my last visit. Determined 144 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:01.399 not to let this go unexamined, I turned to Sammie, 145 00:09:01.639 --> 00:09:04.480 who appeared in a hurry, fitting date stamps into a 146 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:09.159 plastic tray. Sammie, I asked, trying not to sound as 147 00:09:09.159 --> 00:09:12.240 if I was bothering him about a triviality. When did 148 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:15.919 you move the return's cart closer to the window. He 149 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:19.120 looked mildly, puzzled, with the mildness of a man used 150 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:23.080 to fielding more eccentric queries. Didn't move it. I always 151 00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:25.559 put it there. Gives me a better view to the desk, 152 00:09:25.639 --> 00:09:30.200 you know. He shrugged, same spot as ever. I almost 153 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:33.759 challenged him, but he was already half way beyond, lost 154 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:38.279 in his rhythm collecting reshelving's slips from the printer. I 155 00:09:38.360 --> 00:09:42.080 paced the area, counting tiles, then stopped abruptly. On the 156 00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:45.639 wall's surface was a faint, mismatched patch of paint, unlike 157 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:48.399 the rest of the pale blue. I reached out and 158 00:09:48.519 --> 00:09:51.559 touched it. It was cool and slightly rough, as if 159 00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:55.799 the plaster underneath hadn't settled in memory. The patch belonged 160 00:09:55.879 --> 00:09:58.559 much closer to the corner to day. It hovered a 161 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:02.320 full two paces away. The rest of the lighting felt 162 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:06.159 subtly out of place. Two fluorescence reflected off the magazine 163 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:10.399 rack differently, shadows falling not quite where I expected. My 164 00:10:10.519 --> 00:10:15.960 mind swept through possible explanations, tiredness, recovery from a recent cold, 165 00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:19.759 early lapses in spatial reasoning. I could string a dozen 166 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:23.559 plausible doubts into place, each more convenient than the last. 167 00:10:24.600 --> 00:10:29.399 But a teacher's urge to eliminate uncertainty is stubborn. My body, unfortunately, 168 00:10:29.559 --> 00:10:32.320 was old enough to make skepticism a habit. I drew 169 00:10:32.360 --> 00:10:35.519 a deep breath and paced the floor, slow and methodical, 170 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:39.879 counting each step, then turning and measuring the reverse. Sixteen 171 00:10:39.919 --> 00:10:42.799 paces to the east wall as always, but to day 172 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:45.879 only thirteen to the southern. My map would need to 173 00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:49.759 be drawn anew. Already I felt that initial tickle of fascination, 174 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:52.159 as if a theorem had offered me a glimpse of 175 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:55.759 its inner symmetry. By the time I reached home, I 176 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:58.840 had resolved to make real notes, not merely mental ones. 177 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:03.039 A proper note book, pockets eyed ruled for precision, joined 178 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:06.639 my daily kit. Each visit, I would sketch what I saw, 179 00:11:06.840 --> 00:11:11.159 label the details, wall lengths, window placements, the position of 180 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:15.879 movable carts, the orientation of the far desk lamp. It 181 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:18.720 was not that I could not let the matter rest. Rather, 182 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:22.320 it was that the library, my old anchor, had declared 183 00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:26.159 itself a source of variability, an equation with new terms 184 00:11:26.159 --> 00:11:29.559 I had never accounted for. I felt, in that moment 185 00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:33.559 more alive than I had in months. By Saturday, this 186 00:11:33.639 --> 00:11:37.480 had become my private experiment. I'd bought a cheap carpenter's 187 00:11:37.519 --> 00:11:41.200 tape measure, the retractable kind more suited to garden plots 188 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:45.399 than buildings, and tucked it beneath my sweater. On arrival, 189 00:11:45.679 --> 00:11:49.080 I selected the same starting point by the mural, its 190 00:11:49.080 --> 00:11:53.519 sail shaped line, convenient as both mnemonic and geometric anchor. 191 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:57.679 With as little fuss as possible, I mapped six paces 192 00:11:57.720 --> 00:12:00.480 to the magazine rack, then the familiar fifth teen to 193 00:12:00.519 --> 00:12:03.320 the window, But to day the rack was a shelf 194 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:07.080 wider than two days prior. The southern wall again gently bowed. 195 00:12:07.639 --> 00:12:10.519 I drew a quick sketch, noting the slight arc and 196 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:13.320 the cart's renewed position at the center of the ark. 197 00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:18.200 On paper, the effect was unmistakable. Over several days, I 198 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:22.840 layered each map atop the other, the lines refused to coincide. 199 00:12:23.200 --> 00:12:27.440 Although I never recorded gross distortions or wild shifts, only 200 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:33.399 these small, confident perversities of design. My curiosity deepened. Was 201 00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:38.159 I slipping or was the building changing itself imperceptibly but 202 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.200 often enough to keep a careful observer from resting easy. 203 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:45.840 I determined to check my evidence against the library's own record. 204 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:50.360 The answer I thought must start with blueprints, physical facts, 205 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:55.559 immune to elderly confusion. The head librarian, Missus Barton, was 206 00:12:55.639 --> 00:12:58.879 not a woman to trifle with precedent or with shelving order, 207 00:12:59.159 --> 00:13:02.360 but a practical streak was well tempered by humor. She 208 00:13:02.440 --> 00:13:06.320 had the look of teachers everywhere, straight backed, brisk of speech, 209 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:09.200 with an impressive braid wound round her head like the 210 00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:13.080 crown of a pragmatic queen. Our acquaintance went back years. 211 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:16.879 She'd once taught Latin to fifth graders before being seduced 212 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:20.759 by the order and chaos of library work. I suppose 213 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:23.960 you want something tricky again, Howard, she said, as I 214 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:27.600 asked after architectural plans. You're not about to start a 215 00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:31.600 campaign against our new stack arrangement, are you. We only 216 00:13:31.679 --> 00:13:35.559 just got used to the poetry section's last voyage. I 217 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:38.960 shook my head, conscious of needing to seem both innocuous 218 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:43.720 and serious. No campaign, I promise, just curious about how 219 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:47.519 the wings were added for a little project of mine. 220 00:13:47.559 --> 00:13:52.399 She eyed me through nickel, rimmed by focals, considering academic curiosity. 221 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:56.320 Then with a faint smirk, she relented tugging a set 222 00:13:56.360 --> 00:14:00.200 of heavy tubes from the files under her desk, spent 223 00:14:00.240 --> 00:14:04.879 the next hour unrolling blueprints, some with approved stamps barely legible, 224 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:09.080 others remade in eras of colored pencil and neat looping script. 225 00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:14.480 Right away inconsistencies appeared. The nineteen fifty five edition jutted 226 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:16.879 out on the southern end in the older plan, hinting 227 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:20.240 at a wall now long incorporated. Yet by the late 228 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:23.759 seventies the extension was depicted as if it had always 229 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:30.159 been straight. No arc in sight. Room labels shifted genealogy alcove, 230 00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:35.399 swapping positions across two sets of drawings, sometimes abutting the periodicals, 231 00:14:35.679 --> 00:14:40.120 other times near the d FA reading desk. The variations 232 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:44.679 were small, but unmistakable. The blueprints disagreed as surely as 233 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:48.960 my own note book disagreed with my memory. I shared 234 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:52.279 this observation with Sammy as he sorted returns on a 235 00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:55.960 rolling stool. Does the east hallway always join at a 236 00:14:56.039 --> 00:15:01.480 right angle with the stacks? Sammy, eyes narrowed in concentration, shrugged, 237 00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:05.440 never really looked close. Depends which way I'm going, I 238 00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:08.879 guess some days the best short cut is past the annex. 239 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:12.000 Other days not worth the effort. I just look out 240 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:15.080 for the tall cactus in the reading room. That's my marker. 241 00:15:16.120 --> 00:15:20.320 And is it always there? I pressed, he laughed, stacking 242 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:24.080 a biography of Winston Churchill and a slender fantasy novel 243 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:28.000 on his tray. I think it moves honestly, or someone 244 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:31.960 moves it be that way since I started. I left 245 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:34.840 the blueprints for Missus Barton and walked the main hall, 246 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:39.720 checking exits and doors. As I approached Missus Trudeau, she 247 00:15:39.799 --> 00:15:44.080 had her sleeves rolled elbow deep in colored folders. Didn't 248 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:45.919 this nook used to be on the other side of 249 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:49.080 the foye, she said, as I hovered near by. I 250 00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:52.120 swear I did all my research there ten years ago. 251 00:15:53.279 --> 00:15:56.360 Her certainty was genuine, Yet it clashed not only with 252 00:15:56.399 --> 00:16:01.039 the blueprints but also with my recollections. Miss cass earphones 253 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:05.200 in nodded, as if the proposition were perfectly ordinary. People 254 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:08.000 always get lost in here, dear, just how it is. 255 00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:10.919 I wouldn't try to map it. You'd need string and 256 00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:15.600 patience and a dose of fantasy. Each person, I realized, 257 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:18.960 held a distinct picture in memory, none fully in a 258 00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:21.799 chord with any other. It was as if the building's 259 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:27.320 geography was only partly material, partly a collective suggestion negotiated 260 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:32.480 by repetition and disagreement. Curious but undeterred, I poured my 261 00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:36.919 energy into developing a true survey, overlaying my various hand 262 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:41.679 drawn maps with the blueprints marking each divergence, noting too 263 00:16:42.120 --> 00:16:45.720 which recollections I could confirm from others and which drifted 264 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:50.759 further with every consultation. Was the phenomenon physical, a trick 265 00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:54.080 of the mind brought on by years of routine. If so, 266 00:16:54.519 --> 00:16:58.399 why did each person's version seem to rearrange with such confidence? 267 00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:02.320 Why didn't anyone seem particularly unsettled by the fact that 268 00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:07.319 their recollections didn't agree. I redoubled my efforts, not out 269 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:11.160 of skepticism but delight. There is a pleasure, after all, 270 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.839 in following a puzzle that refuses, at every juncture to 271 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:19.440 be made simple. The answers, if any, did not arrive immediately. 272 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:23.839 I circled the perimeter of the nonfiction wing, sketched and measured, 273 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.279 then set my finding side by side with old plans. 274 00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:30.759 I grew interested not just in where doors were, but 275 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:34.240 in where long windows and interior nooks did or did 276 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:39.440 not appear. Curiosity sharpened, I turned to another set of evidence, 277 00:17:39.880 --> 00:17:43.880 the library's photograph archive, housed in the local history room, 278 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:47.880 a few doors down from the periodicals. Here the effect 279 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:52.480 was more pronounced. There were boxes of aerial photographs taken 280 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:56.480 before the current building was constructed, Sepia postcards from the 281 00:17:56.480 --> 00:18:00.000 turn of the last century, municipal records with black cane 282 00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:04.319 white panoramas from the nineteen forties, a spectacularly clear set 283 00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:08.119 of color images from nineteen sixty two showing the demolition 284 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:11.319 of the old bakery, Milliner's Row and the last of 285 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:14.480 the old shop houses. As I laid one of my 286 00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:17.799 most recent floor plans across a nineteen twenty eight city 287 00:18:17.799 --> 00:18:22.240 block photo, I noticed a strange coincidence. The corridor thought 288 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:25.240 of us. The new fiction annex traced the shadow of 289 00:18:25.279 --> 00:18:29.640 a vanished alleyway, a no longer street, erased fifty years before, 290 00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:34.319 its outline still recognizable even after lawns, flower beds, and 291 00:18:34.440 --> 00:18:38.440 sidewalks had long divided up the ground. The shape was 292 00:18:38.519 --> 00:18:43.640 nearly congruent The present library, it seemed, sometimes adopted interior 293 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:47.079 spaces that mimicked ghost lines in the old city blocks. 294 00:18:48.039 --> 00:18:50.880 This was not something easily dismissed as the caprice of 295 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:54.920 tired senses. I grew bold, overlaying a printed copy of 296 00:18:54.960 --> 00:18:58.440 the town's fire insurance map from nineteen thirty onto a 297 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:03.160 tracing of the present floor place. Again I found correlations. 298 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:06.759 A reading room shaped almost precisely like the demolished back 299 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:11.000 room of a bakery, the genealogy area, approximating the footprint 300 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:14.519 of what had once been a narrow house. I brought 301 00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:18.200 this new thread of curiosity to missus Barton. Her office 302 00:19:18.279 --> 00:19:22.000 was a sanctuary of dust, jackets, ledgers, and the persistent 303 00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:26.839 aroma of coffee. Strictly decalf these days, she confessed. I 304 00:19:26.920 --> 00:19:31.000 held out my latest composite maps for her perusal. At 305 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:34.920 first I thought it was coincidence, a quirk of city planning, maybe, 306 00:19:35.079 --> 00:19:38.400 I explained. But with every new visit, the room seemed 307 00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:42.079 to match older spaces, places that aren't there to see 308 00:19:42.119 --> 00:19:45.880 any more. She looked at the overlaid maps and blinked. 309 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:50.920 That's fourteen Willow Street Emerson's Bakery right there. My grandmother 310 00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:54.160 used to bring me for penny biscuits. And that's there's 311 00:19:54.200 --> 00:19:57.960 Granger's hardware. You've put the genealogy alcove right where his 312 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:01.599 shed stood, could see in her face the dawning of 313 00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:04.799 a new kind of skepticism, one that was equal parts 314 00:20:04.839 --> 00:20:09.160 disbelief and reluctant intrigue. She tapped the maps again, but 315 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:11.680 the bakery was torn down. When I was a child, 316 00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:15.480 that room was always part of the library, or was it. 317 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:19.640 Neither of us could trust memory over what lay before us. 318 00:20:20.119 --> 00:20:23.359 Even as we debated, we cross referenced the blueprints with 319 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:28.880 the older city overlays, sometimes finding impossible convergences. Sometimes watching 320 00:20:28.920 --> 00:20:33.000 the parallels dissipate like morning fog, it became evident the 321 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:38.119 library's structure resonated, however, obliquely, with older city streets, on 322 00:20:38.200 --> 00:20:42.519 some days more so than others. I returned home in 323 00:20:42.599 --> 00:20:46.920 an unmappable state of restlessness, a growing conviction that the 324 00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:51.920 library's strangeness was no longer personal. Now every visit brought 325 00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:56.160 new discoveries. One morning, the reading room's bay window stretched 326 00:20:56.160 --> 00:20:59.799 outward in the same bulging manner as that first distorted wall. 327 00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:03.880 When I checked again two days later, the window had receded. 328 00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:08.519 The bench beneath, once a perfect fit, now seemed oddly narrow, 329 00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:12.000 as if the fabric of the place had shifted sideways. 330 00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:16.480 I looked for confirmation in conversation. Missus Trudeau, ever, the 331 00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:20.359 keen observer of local minutiae, provided further evidence in the 332 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:24.160 form of stories. My father's office was where the periodicals 333 00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:28.839 are now, she mused one afternoon sorting clippings. Some mornings 334 00:21:28.920 --> 00:21:31.079 I come in and I swear I can feel the 335 00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:34.640 creaking of the old porch steps right under the tiled floor. 336 00:21:35.799 --> 00:21:40.279 She smiled, as if privately amused. Sometimes after a nap, 337 00:21:40.519 --> 00:21:43.599 I find I've wandered right back to my childhood front door, 338 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:46.720 except there's a shelf of town minutes blocking the way. 339 00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:51.839 Missus Barton, encouraged by our earlier foray, now reminisced with 340 00:21:51.960 --> 00:21:55.880 less constraint, I would have wagered anything that the genealogy 341 00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:58.440 alcove used to be on the north end until a 342 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:01.039 few years ago when it moved moved east, and none 343 00:22:01.079 --> 00:22:05.559 of the staff seemed to notice or care. I listened, 344 00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:10.559 making mental notes as contradictions compounded. The regulars, Ellery Cassil, 345 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:13.440 even Sammy, who as a part time staffer had the 346 00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:17.319 run of the building, each held their own set of traditions, roots, 347 00:22:17.519 --> 00:22:22.160 short cuts, and never fails except to person. They disagreed 348 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:25.200 on what those were no two staff members matched in 349 00:22:25.240 --> 00:22:28.039 their recall of where the reading room first appeared, or 350 00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:31.799 which hallway had always skirted the garden. On a hunch, 351 00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:34.400 I flipped through staff log books in the breakroom looking 352 00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:38.119 for illusions. Entries from years past hinted at adjustments to 353 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:42.440 the east stacks, re numbered doors, windows relocated for HVAC, 354 00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:45.720 but further back still. A nineteen eighty eight note read 355 00:22:45.759 --> 00:22:50.039 simply moved reference cart to central location, tripped on threshold 356 00:22:50.039 --> 00:22:53.240 that shouldn't have been there. One spiral bound note book, 357 00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:58.000 yellowed and water damaged, referenced yet another rearrangement of the periodicals. 358 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:02.599 Too many ghosts. The effect of these discoveries was cumulative, 359 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:06.599 a shifting sense that the library's personality emerged not from 360 00:23:06.599 --> 00:23:11.319 its collections or even its staff, but from something subtly participatory. 361 00:23:12.079 --> 00:23:16.640 Every change in footprint, every relocating wall or absently wandering 362 00:23:16.720 --> 00:23:20.000 cart seemed less like a malfunction and more like an 363 00:23:20.039 --> 00:23:24.160 ongoing negotiation between the library, its history, and those who 364 00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:28.640 moved through it. One rainy Wednesday, as I entered umbrella 365 00:23:28.759 --> 00:23:32.039 dripping just outside the vestibule, I stopped beneath the mural. 366 00:23:32.640 --> 00:23:35.680 My eye caught on a spot just a smudge, perhaps 367 00:23:35.720 --> 00:23:38.759 a water stain where one of the painted sails overlapped 368 00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:42.319 and now sealed off arch. The smudge resembled the outline 369 00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:45.440 of a map. The main corridor currently matched the path 370 00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:48.640 of the town's long demolished trolley line. It was an 371 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:53.359 impression so fleeting I almost dismissed it, except beneath it, 372 00:23:53.559 --> 00:23:57.279 the floor sounded subtly hollow, a resonance akin to boards 373 00:23:57.319 --> 00:24:01.039 under tension. I pressed with my cane, listening to the 374 00:24:01.079 --> 00:24:05.200 difference in echo, and felt a surprise, a brief vibration, 375 00:24:05.559 --> 00:24:09.839 as if a track ran there. Still exhilarated, I visited 376 00:24:09.839 --> 00:24:13.440 the local archives, with every map, every plan I could copy. 377 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:18.400 I documented where rooms drifted, tracked the memory of closed alleys, 378 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:22.759 shops flattened by time, unrecorded in the living city, yet 379 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:28.200 somehow still present under foot. The shift in understanding was overwhelming. 380 00:24:28.839 --> 00:24:32.319 I realized my quest was not solely about measuring optical 381 00:24:32.359 --> 00:24:36.160 illusions or architectural aftershocks. I was at the edge of 382 00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:40.359 something more intricate, a living record of the town's discontinuities, 383 00:24:40.680 --> 00:24:44.839 resurfacing and receding in line with human attention, rooted in 384 00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:49.839 what lingered after demolition and progress. The library was, moment 385 00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:53.759 by moment, a palimpsest, its pattern of rooms and nooks 386 00:24:53.799 --> 00:24:59.559 merging almost wilfully with the ruined geography inscribed beneath. If 387 00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:03.240 anyone outside our small group noticed, they regarded it as 388 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.920 a source of amusement. Miss Cassel, for instance, declared it 389 00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:09.640 a boon. You never quite end up in the same 390 00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:13.920 spot twice, which keeps things lively, doesn't it. But I 391 00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:18.240 studied the pattern, tracing lines between vanished houses and present 392 00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:22.079 reading rooms, wondering if places could remember in the absence 393 00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:26.440 of those who'd mapped them. My mind reeled what might 394 00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:28.039 it mean for a building to be built on the 395 00:25:28.079 --> 00:25:30.599 echo of the memory, not just of people, but of 396 00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:35.400 entire vanished neighborhoods. Were we merely confused by time, deceived 397 00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:38.039 by the tricks of architecture, or in the presence of 398 00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:42.720 a space whose very shape was memory itself, alive, mutable, 399 00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:46.599 and gently unmoored from the certainties of blueprint or recollection. 400 00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:50.480 I caught Missus Barton as she was resetting the main 401 00:25:50.599 --> 00:25:55.680