WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:07.759 Rains grabbled across the roof of Riverside Library in frantic 2 00:00:07.799 --> 00:00:10.960 little fits, chasing itself in and out of leaking gutters overhead. 3 00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:13.560 I always liked the sound, the way it muffled out 4 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.519 everything else, traffic forces, the clatter of cuts on polished tile, 5 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:18.800 leaving only the hush of pages and the distant, patient 6 00:00:18.839 --> 00:00:21.440 creek of all timber settling with the weather. The North 7 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:23.800 Annex always felt different way it was raining, like it 8 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:27.160 belonged to another city, or maybe another century. I was 9 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:29.839 shelving on catalog donation books on a Tuesday afternoon, my 10 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:32.439 fingers soft from humidity, dust, read in the airblution the 11 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:34.920 half light. When I first saw the shelf, it was 12 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.200 easy to miss, wesh narrow between the faded leather bound 13 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:40.320 provincial histories in a brittle row of nineteen for it 14 00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:43.200 as agricultural almanacs. The shelf was set off as land, 15 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:45.479 almost concealed behind a pipe that bent into the wall, 16 00:00:45.479 --> 00:00:48.719 a peculiar angle. The shelf itself for short, maybe three 17 00:00:48.759 --> 00:00:51.759 feet across, and capped with a dull brass plate, tarnished tobacco. 18 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:56.280 Cold works and progress that caught me. Works and progress 19 00:00:56.399 --> 00:00:58.359 was never a catalog in term I'd seen used here, 20 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:00.719 or at least not outside in ten o life bury meetings, 21 00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:04.120 where we jerked about trucks of processed donations. I stooped, 22 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:06.879 squinting in the unreliable glow of a flickering fixture. Overhead, 23 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:10.480 A soft smell, stale sweet, somehow vegetable rose from the wool. 24 00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:13.239 The books and papers on the shelf didn't match. Some 25 00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:16.159 were stitched note books, others just sheaves bound by aging twine. 26 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:18.359 Still others had their edges folded, as if pressed under 27 00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:22.599 too many hands. I pulled the first volume free. The pages, 28 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:25.519 lobing with a slanted, neat hand, sketched out the wanderings 29 00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:27.079 of a boy in winter who saw to keep sick 30 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:30.040 in his grandmother's house. But the story, just as I 31 00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:32.760 found myself leaning into it, cut sharply, the last line, 32 00:01:32.840 --> 00:01:35.599 ending mid sentence. With every room, the shadow grew softer, 33 00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:38.719 and a I riffled for a stack of pages behind it, 34 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:41.920 a diary or maybe a confession, but broken off. Just 35 00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:45.159 as a secret was about to be described, A yellowing sheaf, 36 00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:48.480 written in blocky capitals outlined a love triangle among botanists. 37 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.159 Looping through descriptions, of violets, sillery root, a walled hedger, 38 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:55.319 then broke off with a word, until I tried three more. 39 00:01:56.040 --> 00:01:58.799 Not one reached an ending. Some stopped in the midst 40 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:00.920 of dialogue, other stuttered out with the first half of 41 00:02:00.920 --> 00:02:04.079 a metaphor a description unmurred each writer. If there were 42 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:06.200 even more than one left, whole rooms of meanings still 43 00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:09.800 boarded up, entire relationships half disclosed. But it wasn't simply 44 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:12.800 that these one finished. Something about them felt as if 45 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:15.520 the endings had been slice clean away abruptly and with intention. 46 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:18.599 A progression arrested midbreath. I ran my thumb over the 47 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:21.520 age of one sheaf, A fragment of graphitesmeared under my hand, 48 00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:24.080 as if words eroded from the paper, even as I watched. 49 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:29.000 No author's names, no dates, no sign of provements or 50 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:31.639 catalog in numbers, only the pulpy paper in that sign 51 00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:34.680 works in progress. I sat on the weathered ladder, at 52 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:37.240 the distant smell of muss pencil lead, and pecked car 53 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:40.439 pricidling through my nose. The annexes ere colder than the 54 00:02:40.439 --> 00:02:42.960 rest of the library, oddly muted and still pressed in 55 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:46.719 gentler than silence. I wondered if the stories were abandoned, 56 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:48.400 or if they were meant to keep growing, as if 57 00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:51.000 the act of reading might stir something into motion. My 58 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:54.039 mind slid backward. How every year my former students turned 59 00:02:54.039 --> 00:02:56.560 in stories that always trailed off mid thought endings followed 60 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:59.439 by the demands of homework siblings were just solved out. 61 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:02.120 It was a particular ache, the potential of what might 62 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:05.520 have been. But these manuscripts, these were different. Their own 63 00:03:05.560 --> 00:03:07.879 finishers felt less like abandon meant and more like a 64 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:10.759 sort of waiting, as if in time they expected to 65 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:15.400 resume themselves. I checked the time, nearly closing, I restored 66 00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:18.039 the shelf, but the question pressed behind my eyes, insistent. 67 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.520 Who wrote these? And why would any one's staff, reader 68 00:03:21.719 --> 00:03:24.120 or librarian set aside two dozen complete stories in a 69 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:27.840 public collection. Why leave them here, half glimpsed for decades, 70 00:03:28.520 --> 00:03:30.400 And why did every one of their voices feel so 71 00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:33.240 strangely current, as if their authors were never so far away? 72 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:36.759 The annexes empty, light trembled in the brass play, rain 73 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:39.080 battered the windows now, and beneath that, the pulse of 74 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:42.039 my own curiosity ran while down the untraveled corridors of 75 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:45.159 my mind There are certain patterns every school teacher comes 76 00:03:45.199 --> 00:03:48.080 to expect in a life mat by academic calendars, the 77 00:03:48.199 --> 00:03:51.120 end of June release, the second week of August summons, 78 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:54.479 the small habits accumulating between. When I retired thirty five 79 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:58.120 years of language arts essis both brilliant and tortuous. Poetry 80 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:00.240 read both aloud and in diary margins. I thought I 81 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:03.360 had relinquished a regularity of bells and lesson plans, but 82 00:04:03.479 --> 00:04:06.960 Riverside Library kept a different calendar. Here, the weeks clicked 83 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.039 by with the rhythm of repairs, stone at teas, inventory spreadsheets, 84 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:13.199 and quiet negotiation with the ghosts of past librarians. There 85 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:15.639 was no real reason to volunteer twice a week, except 86 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:17.600 that I liked how the city's stories nested in its 87 00:04:17.639 --> 00:04:20.160 oldest building, like layers of pain visible in the sunlight. 88 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:24.000 The original library, sandstone and brick, predated even the oldest 89 00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:27.959 river ccentered city maps sprawling out over Tanikes building. It 90 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:30.879 accumulated annexes and conversion wings. The north annex, built on 91 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:33.399 an even stone added in nineteen o two, with gossip 92 00:04:33.399 --> 00:04:35.800 about hidden rooms and lost blueprints as constant as the 93 00:04:35.879 --> 00:04:39.199 drafts under every door colleagues groaned about its plumbing quarks, 94 00:04:39.439 --> 00:04:41.360 but I liked the way it seemed to rearrange itself 95 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:44.120 when left to its own devices. The staffer that the 96 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:47.439 annexes got up and moved their own holes at night. Marjorie, 97 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:51.759 the director, considered herself practical about such things. Honestly, Ruth, 98 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:54.000 half the stories in this building come from bad lighting 99 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:56.360 in late hours. Gets some coffee, and don't mistake all 100 00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:59.120 for magical. But she trusted me with the North annex. 101 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:01.600 It was, she said, had a perfect task for someone 102 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:05.199 who's both patient and not easily rattled. She often assigned 103 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:08.600 me to inventory the volumes nobody else volunteered for. I 104 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:11.759 think she suspected I found pleasure in disorder. Then there 105 00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:14.639 was Sammy, technically a part time archaves but really the 106 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:18.319 library's best source for local oddities. Only in their twenties, 107 00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:21.319 sharp eyed, constantly digging in the back stacks from catalog 108 00:05:21.360 --> 00:05:24.079 to femeer, Sammy had a talent for finding forgotten corners. 109 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:27.279 Every building like this as a memory, they'd say, showing 110 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:29.959 me an eighteen ninety one ladger or a musty theater program. 111 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:32.720 People leave way more behind than you think. You just 112 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:35.720 have to choose to notice. Frank was the longest standing 113 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:38.040 figure of Janitor, with twenty seven years and a collection 114 00:05:38.120 --> 00:05:39.800 of keys so heavy I once saw him move a 115 00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:41.839 fore mop with his foot. Rather than risk adding keys 116 00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:44.160 to his rowing, he refused to cling further than the 117 00:05:44.199 --> 00:05:48.000 annex's first two rows of stacks. He once told me, Ruth, 118 00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:50.759 those shells back there, they move around, and not one 119 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:52.879 clock works right in that part. I'll keep my broom 120 00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:55.680 where I can see out both ends. So I catalogged 121 00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:58.800 and reminisced and listened to the quiet. The routines became 122 00:05:58.839 --> 00:06:01.959 their own kind of story, traceing faded coal numbers, dusting spines, 123 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:05.240 trying to decipher's owner notes, and cryptic leaping handwriting. Some 124 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:08.519 days Marjorie would stop by, mutter about clothing, budgets, and 125 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:11.680 shuffle off. Occasionally a visitor from the community would poke 126 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:13.759 their head in, but they always stayed close to daylight, 127 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:16.959 rarely wandering as far as the north annex. The place 128 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.839 had its own atmospheric shell, like stepping into caverorn old cellar, 129 00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:22.279 where rewards came back to you differently, softer as if 130 00:06:22.279 --> 00:06:25.639 he'd spoken into pillow. The works in progressed shelf nestled 131 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:28.000 under a flickering gold that never stayed replaced for long 132 00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:31.519 became my minor obsession. Every time I pass the urge 133 00:06:31.519 --> 00:06:34.399 tickled at me take another book, find another fragment, tried 134 00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:36.600 to tease out the pattern. A shelf so out of 135 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:38.600 place should have come with its own origin story, but 136 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:41.759 the catalog was silent on the subject. I'd always had 137 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:44.319 a particular fondness for student stories that finished and completed 138 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:47.439 in the margins of their potential. I saw possibility, not failure. 139 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:50.560 Every story tells on its own terrems, I'd say to 140 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:54.079 groans from tide sixth graders. Now, with retirement, I had 141 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:56.240 all the time in the world for those unfinished narratives 142 00:06:56.639 --> 00:06:59.000 waiting in borrowed light, for someone patient enough to listen. 143 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:02.839 The annexe in turn listened back. Rain continued to tap 144 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:05.000 at odd Morse on the window panes, and the bulbub 145 00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:07.560 of the shelf covered von poff On. A faint breath 146 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:11.079 of cold wind coiled around the brass, almost inaudible. Late 147 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:13.680 that evening, as I gathered my things, I felt certain 148 00:07:13.720 --> 00:07:15.920 there was something in this shelf that invited not just myself, 149 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:18.399 but anyone who'd ever pause uncertain at the ending of 150 00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:21.399 a story. The next day, I moved faster than usual 151 00:07:21.439 --> 00:07:24.240 through the main building. It was bright up and glancing 152 00:07:24.279 --> 00:07:26.839 through clouds. The river outside blue as a prose cord, 153 00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:29.399 but the northanx still held that colorless chow quiet you 154 00:07:29.480 --> 00:07:32.319 didn't get elsewhere. I carried with me both a stack 155 00:07:32.360 --> 00:07:34.560 of catalog slips and a half formed plan to day 156 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:38.040 as read systematically and perhaps with new focused spot patterns, 157 00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:40.800 I missed. The feeling I'd had yesterday was more than 158 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:44.240 idle curiosity. There was a hum of expectancy, as if 159 00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:48.000 returning one might find the story had shifted onwards. I 160 00:07:48.079 --> 00:07:50.319 started where I'd left off, pulling from the middle of 161 00:07:50.399 --> 00:07:52.439 the shelf and notebook with a pebble green cover, its 162 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.959 corners worn into rounded flaps. I remembered, if vividly, it 163 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:57.519 had caught me last time, with the image of a 164 00:07:57.600 --> 00:07:59.959 vanishtale in the last written words, Trailing off at pace 165 00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:03.079 forty seven, stopping in mid description, I settled on a 166 00:08:03.160 --> 00:08:05.720 rickety wooden stool, drew the notebook close, and began from 167 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:08.800 the beginning. The opening was as I remembered, a sister 168 00:08:08.879 --> 00:08:11.600 and brother searching for something lost, rifling through seed of chests, 169 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.079 their dial or glaced with small domestic worries. But at 170 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:18.519 page forty seven the narrative didn't just stop. It continued 171 00:08:19.240 --> 00:08:23.120 six pages further. I combed backward and forward, blinking. The 172 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:26.639 handwriting matched the elegant slanted strokes, the consistent pressure, the 173 00:08:26.680 --> 00:08:29.519 same faint blue link. But the story pressed forward into 174 00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:32.080 places I had never seen. It didn't stumble or pause awkwardly, 175 00:08:32.200 --> 00:08:34.519 but swept on, and the missing airlum was now discussed 176 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:36.759 in the context of a newly installed city bus stop. 177 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:39.639 Even the children's jokes reference things you think at tiding 178 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:42.360 at the bubble tea shop that were unnively recent ideas 179 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:45.720 from last week's local news. I paged true in disbelief 180 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:48.879 my notes from yesterday type teachers scrip to describe a 181 00:08:48.919 --> 00:08:51.639 cliffhanger ending, But there, plainly laid out was a thread 182 00:08:51.639 --> 00:08:55.360 of plot entirely new. At first, I suspected memory. Could 183 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:58.200 I really have missed so much so recently? But my 184 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:01.159 own catalog's lip dated an Annataye was still tucked into 185 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:04.159 the volume. Ends. The shadow grew softer and p. Forty 186 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:07.399 seven six, last sevens, last twenty four, no mention of 187 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:09.840 the bus stop, no dialog about bubble tea, no hint 188 00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:13.200 of anything modern. There was no obvious insert, no visible 189 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:15.200 sign a page had been glued or slipped in overnight. 190 00:09:15.879 --> 00:09:18.159 The paper ages, the inks fade, even the rhythm of 191 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:21.600 the line breaks. Everything matched. A curious tingling seized me. 192 00:09:21.759 --> 00:09:24.720 I checked the clock only half an hour past opening. 193 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:27.279 Nobody from the main stafford have passed through, certainly not 194 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:30.480 with a fresh notebook a matching hand. I documented everything, 195 00:09:30.519 --> 00:09:33.159 this time of full transcription of the new ending with notes, 196 00:09:33.279 --> 00:09:37.120 page numbers, physical description. My excitement was as sharp as caveen. 197 00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:40.600 I flipped through several other volumes, searching for similar continuity, 198 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:43.480 but nothing has striking caught my eye. By the time 199 00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:46.039 I surfaced from my inspection, the sound of footsteps Frank 200 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:48.240 coming to check a leaky radiator reminded me how long 201 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:50.559 I'd been absorbed, the sort of absorption you only find 202 00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:53.679 in the company of a mystery. Still, the contradiction nod. 203 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:56.559 Either my memory in written notes had failed me, or 204 00:09:56.559 --> 00:09:59.720 the book had change naturally and impossibly since my last visit. 205 00:10:00.279 --> 00:10:04.679 Could it be prank err a trick of fatigue? I 206 00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:06.879 talked for too many years to attribute every oddity to 207 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:09.960 my own mistakes. There was more here than paper and ink. 208 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:12.720 That's what I told myself as I left the annex 209 00:10:12.759 --> 00:10:14.759 the first dreads of something large, a beginning with no 210 00:10:14.919 --> 00:10:17.960 sense of how many pages remained. I approached my next 211 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:20.320 few visits of the Scholar's Caution determined not to let 212 00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:23.240 imagination run ahead of what I could observe. Each day 213 00:10:23.320 --> 00:10:25.519 I brought a fresh spiral notebook to record every word 214 00:10:25.559 --> 00:10:27.919 A found at the end of a manuscript, every curious phrase, 215 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.559 every unfinished ending. My method was direct, pick up a volume, 216 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:34.480 document the last line, cross reference it on the next visit. 217 00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:39.000 At first, skepticism ruled, but in quick succession my careful 218 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:42.360 records betrayed a consistent, unsettling pattern, though works and progress 219 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:44.919 weren't fixed in place at all. On Thursday, I took 220 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:47.039 up a thin bundle tied with green thread, which had 221 00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:49.600 catalogged the previous week as a brief poetic memory about 222 00:10:49.639 --> 00:10:52.159 the city's rivers, ending with the cryptic metaphor as if 223 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:54.200 even the river remembers the names, no one else will 224 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:57.960 ever speak. But to day the manuscript continued, now wandering 225 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:01.000 into pages about recent river clean ups, even referencing the 226 00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:03.559 installation of a mural downtown, a mural painted just three 227 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:07.480 months ago. The language shifted with uncanny precision, adopting casual 228 00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:10.080 present day slang. Cackers these days don't know half the 229 00:11:10.120 --> 00:11:13.919 stories these waters hide. Next a collection of vignette' last 230 00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:16.559 week frozen mid narrative, A Child's sorrowed a missing Cat. 231 00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:20.080 This time the story went on a protagonist wandering past 232 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:22.080 the shop with the new Neon sign, then running into 233 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:24.480 a neighbor who quite inexplicably used the nickname of our 234 00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:27.919 new bakery's owner. Open only since May. In all cases, 235 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:30.720 the new material will seem us, not tacked on, not mismatched. 236 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:34.559 The versology bounced between dialog and description, and even the 237 00:11:34.600 --> 00:11:36.519 subtle humor ran straight from the old to the new. 238 00:11:37.039 --> 00:11:38.960 The voice is knew the present better than they should. 239 00:11:39.559 --> 00:11:42.879 With every visit, every solitary reading, the stories expanded, sometimes 240 00:11:42.919 --> 00:11:46.799 by a paragraph, sometimes by a page, sometimes whole scenes, 241 00:11:46.919 --> 00:11:49.600 always fluid, impossibly tailored not only to the setting but 242 00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:52.519 to the faintest current of city life outside. I kept 243 00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:56.759 mediculous records, dates, last lines, physical details about the page hedges, 244 00:11:56.799 --> 00:11:59.279 and the color of ink. Each time, my new notes 245 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:02.120 captured a world that had grown wild theoretically, the library 246 00:12:02.200 --> 00:12:04.720 doors were locked and duck. They urged to share this 247 00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:08.159 with some one else, ballooned in me, hot and unwieldy. Still, 248 00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:10.120 something about the way the shelf sat in the corner, 249 00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:12.360 a shelf inside a shelf, so to speak into the 250 00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:15.879 exposure might change everything. I brought Marjorie the next Saturday, 251 00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:18.840 feigning casual interests, gesturing at the shelf and inviting her 252 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:22.360 to browse. She, as ever, was brisk and skeptical, looking 253 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:24.919 over the books with an a valuative eye. I watched 254 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:28.279 as she flipped the pages. What am I supposed to see, Ruth, 255 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:30.600 she said, arching and I borrow thumb tracking through the 256 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:34.200 green note book. Nothing here but old school essays, half finished, 257 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:36.759 shell them or box em up. She showed me the 258 00:12:36.840 --> 00:12:39.240 lost line. It was the same as before, matching my 259 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:42.159 holess notes. The shadow grew softer and a no trace 260 00:12:42.200 --> 00:12:45.639 of the bus stop, no bubble tea jokes. I even 261 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:47.799 showed her my catalog slip, but she only smiled with 262 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:50.799 the administrative patience. Are you sure you are not mixing 263 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:53.360 them up with the reader's contest entries? Shells get swapped 264 00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:56.799 all the time. Back here, she checked her phone anyway, 265 00:12:56.919 --> 00:12:58.320 ye know where to find me if you need a 266 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:01.360 second set of eyes. I tried again, this time with 267 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:04.200 other friend, once a math teacher whose memory for detail 268 00:13:04.279 --> 00:13:07.639 rivaled my own. I explain nothing, simply suggested, let's have 269 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:09.600 a look at these old stories. Tell me how they end. 270 00:13:10.279 --> 00:13:13.360 He obliged, thumb the same volumes and purported exactly the 271 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:16.559 lines I cataloged at first. Nothing new, nothing modern, No 272 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:20.000 oddity is threaded in. He shrugged, grin. Maybe they meant 273 00:13:20.039 --> 00:13:22.720 to never be finished. It's good practice for patience, Ruth. 274 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:26.480 When I visited alone, the stories grew again, each time 275 00:13:26.679 --> 00:13:29.720 a new insertion, a subtle growth, sometimes of recent city councils, 276 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:32.600 of handed expression, sometimes a market detail borrowed from this 277 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:36.159 week's paper. Once the child seeking the lost dog suddenly 278 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:38.759 noticed the new blue mail books, recently debated in the 279 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:42.159 neighborhood committee. I checked city records. The mail books wasn't 280 00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:45.200 even three weeks old. It became clear the scripts weren't 281 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:49.240 just finishing themselves, plodding through to neat endings. They were morphing, evolving, 282 00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:51.600 breathing in the cities present, pulling the world outside the 283 00:13:51.639 --> 00:13:54.559 annex into their own tissue. I suspect it briefly, some 284 00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:58.360 elabora trick at a creative writing circle met here over years, 285 00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:01.919 steadily layering in new content, but nothing in the shelf stats. 286 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:04.559 The lack of any witness to other readers, and especially 287 00:14:04.679 --> 00:14:07.960 the impossibility of verifying the changes outside my own solitary visits, 288 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:11.360 made sense of it. Curiosity transmuted into orbit, it growing 289 00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:15.000 ourknees only half rational. Was a some subtle enchantment, a 290 00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:18.559 decades old game, something to do with the building's rumored history. 291 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:21.440 If so, why did the phenomenon shut down the moment 292 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:24.840 in other's eyes attended. I dove into the library's records, 293 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.960 scouring accession logs and old staff catalogs for any mention 294 00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:32.639 of the mysterious shelf. Nothing, no purchase, no donor listing, 295 00:14:32.919 --> 00:14:35.440 no accident report or urban legend about works and progress 296 00:14:35.480 --> 00:14:38.960 touched by the north annexes rear wall. The mystery only deepened, 297 00:14:39.039 --> 00:14:42.240 becoming more articulate. The shelf seemed to adapt aslf to 298 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:45.000 the contemporary world, as if it now not yet alone, 299 00:14:45.200 --> 00:14:47.440 But the stories within desired the life line to the present, 300 00:14:47.559 --> 00:14:49.720 and found it impossibly in the act of being read 301 00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:52.759 by a single person alone and attentive. I pressed the 302 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:54.799 palm of my hand against the flickering light above the shelf, 303 00:14:54.919 --> 00:14:58.039 feeling its persistent weak warmth. I no longer doubted that 304 00:14:58.080 --> 00:14:59.799 there was something more here, or something at Like a 305 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:02.720 f saint radio signal required both the precise frequency and 306 00:15:02.759 --> 00:15:06.480 complete privacy. A day ended unease and excitement twined together. 307 00:15:07.080 --> 00:15:09.960 The shelf hadn't just bled the line between unfinished and complete. 308 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:12.440 It had begun to erase the wall between external world 309 00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:15.600 and internal imagination. The next week, I resolved to move 310 00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:18.639 from documentation to a fright experiment. I returned to the 311 00:15:18.679 --> 00:15:21.120 annex in the quiet hour after opening, when the library 312 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:23.919 was at its most undisturbed. I arrived with the plan 313 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:26.200 and a thin tip blue pentucked into my cud, again 314 00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:29.720 chosen for its contrast to the older fagetings of the manuscripts. 315 00:15:30.360 --> 00:15:32.639 Selecting a notebook that I had already cataloged, this one 316 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:35.279 a curious travel oc narrating a rambling walk through city 317 00:15:35.320 --> 00:15:36.919 streets that could have been mapped any time in the 318 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:39.519 past hundred years. I examined the last page, where the 319 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:42.159 previous sentences ended in a vignette about a bakery's window 320 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:45.480 unfinished A cinnamon bread on display without buyer. I turned 321 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:47.879 the page to a blank sheet. On the upper line, 322 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:50.240 I wrote a single sentence, she remembered, as if out 323 00:15:50.279 --> 00:15:52.399 of nowhere, the coal hush of the concrete steps after 324 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:54.960 her first recital, the way sunlight fell and angled stripes. 325 00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:58.240 I shut the notebook, snapping the elastic band over its cover, 326 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.000 a tremor between anticipation and out flickering through my chest. 327 00:16:01.759 --> 00:16:04.600 The next day I pretended detachment, chatting with Frank about 328 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:06.600 the radiator for a few minutes before slipping back to 329 00:16:06.679 --> 00:16:09.080 the annex alone. The notebook was where I left it, 330 00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:12.080 with my sentence etched in blue. It had been continued. 331 00:16:12.720 --> 00:16:15.360 Four new sentences now followed mine, in the same script 332 00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:18.120 that ran throughout the rest of the notebook. The narrative 333 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:21.159 pressed on her legsac from the secret stretching she'd done backstage, 334 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:24.480 wanting to seem tall older. Her father stood outside, shifting 335 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:26.759 from for deferat as if erasing his own apology. She 336 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:32.080 realized Afros. It described sensations I'd never told anyone, not 337 00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:35.360 even in passing the rest is standing with particular anxiety 338 00:16:35.399 --> 00:16:37.840 about seeming taller after my first piano recital. These were 339 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:40.840 just plausible details. There were memories from my own life, 340 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.960 seldom revisited and never disclosed aloud, not even to myself 341 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:47.639 in recent years. I checked the ink I faded into goblue, 342 00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:50.440 indistinct from the rest of the preceding pages, neither newer 343 00:16:50.519 --> 00:16:52.879 nor older, as if it had always been there. I 344 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:55.919 tried again, in another context. I inserted a passage from 345 00:16:55.919 --> 00:16:58.120 a dream IDE's gold in my personal journal, a recurring 346 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:01.399 surreal vision involving stray cats, colored lamp posts, a sense 347 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:03.360 of running lead for a meeting I had already missed. 348 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:06.400 I rephrased it, then added it to the trailing end 349 00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:09.440 of an old story about runaway dogs. Three days later, 350 00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:12.559 when I came back again in solitude, the manuscript's next 351 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:15.680 page described, in uncannily accurate fragments, a stray cat leaping 352 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:18.480 between colored lamps, a woman arriving always just after everyone 353 00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:22.279 else had left. The books weren't merely finishing themselves. They 354 00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:25.160 were sampling, mirroring, perhaps what surfaced in the reader's mind, 355 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:29.160 incorporating memories, dreams, and even the color of private anxieties. 356 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:32.240 I pushed further, this time, using a family anecdote half 357 00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:34.839 remembered a lost Nicholas, my aunt's denial, the Summer of 358 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:38.960 the Cicadas. I added this coded into the margins. By 359 00:17:39.079 --> 00:17:42.119 week's end, a fresh page appeared, rendering the cicadas buzzer 360 00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:44.480 as a motif, the lost necklace reimagined as a glass 361 00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:46.200 beat hidden in the lining of an old carpet, and 362 00:17:46.279 --> 00:17:49.119 the anecdote sheep folding into a new plot. Entirely, I 363 00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:53.880 thrill swept me dizzy and oceanic. The boundaries of myself recognition, memory, 364 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:56.279 even secret winds were poorus here, at least so long 365 00:17:56.319 --> 00:18:00.200 as I was alone, curious, unwilling to pay attention. I wondered, then, 366 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:03.480 not entirely comfortably, about the limits. Would it find my 367 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:07.519 deepest regrets, my happiest days. Would it remake them or 368 00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:10.319 merely echo them in fiction, never surfacing the truth outright. 369 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:14.079 Each edition was gentle, never invasive, always refrained in a 370 00:18:14.119 --> 00:18:16.200 way that left the moment less like confession and more 371 00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:20.319 like permission. Still, sometimes the annexes are felt closer, charged 372 00:18:20.359 --> 00:18:22.759 in a curious way. The fluorescent fixtures stutter, filling in 373 00:18:22.799 --> 00:18:26.079 for a heartbeat. After a last check to confirm my findings, 374 00:18:26.200 --> 00:18:28.119 I left that evening and stood by the wrist stacke 375 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:30.680 slow with wonder. I didn't quite know if I was 376 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:33.480 the author now or simply a conduit. Did these stories 377 00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:36.759 search for endings or for new beginnings? Did every visitor 378 00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:39.519 find their life absorbed? I let the thaw slip into 379 00:18:39.559 --> 00:18:42.720 the hush, out loud, only half aware, I murmured into 380 00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:44.839 the cool air. If the books can grow using pieces 381 00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:47.079 of my own story, what else can they remember that 382 00:18:47.079 --> 00:18:49.920 I've forgotten? The annex was silent, save for the soft 383 00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:52.839 staccato of the flickering bulb above the brass plateforonn then off, 384 00:18:52.920 --> 00:18:55.559 then on again. The moment after I spoke aloud in 385 00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:57.880 the annex, the only reply came in the subtle cease, 386 00:18:57.960 --> 00:19:00.000 the flicker of that overhead bulb, and the faraway shuffle 387 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:03.720 of water in the radiators. I weeded listening, but the 388 00:19:03.799 --> 00:19:06.200 hush only pressed in or respect for the line I'd crossed, 389 00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:08.720 a small private contract sealed between myself and the shelf 390 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:12.000 of unfinished stories. Almost immediately, the clarity of a new 391 00:19:12.039 --> 00:19:15.359 question burned. If the annex could pull fragments from me, memories, secrets, 392 00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:18.839 even stray worries, What bunderies, if any contained its gathering? 393 00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:21.440 Did the stories in these pages come only from me? 394 00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:24.119 Or was I a single voice among many, old and new, 395 00:19:24.359 --> 00:19:28.079 stitched together into something wider. The compulsion then was no 396 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:30.279 longer to prove what the annex did. I believed in 397 00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:32.880 its strange mechanism, secret and personal as it was, but 398 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:35.480 to understand how far back its reach extended, and what 399 00:19:35.799 --> 00:19:38.519 or whom I had joined by participating. I could no 400 00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:41.880 longer satisfy myself with private experiments. Some shards of history, 401 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:44.839