WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.320 are here, let's get into it. It was a Tuesday, 3 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:14.359 and I remember because the rain, not the usual Pacific 4 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:16.719 drizzle either, but a generous, soaking rain that hammered the 5 00:00:16.760 --> 00:00:18.920 east windows, turned the parking lot into a colt of 6 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:21.879 pop reflections, and lent the whole library at damp, metallic 7 00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:24.800 tang hoole paper, were coats, floor polish, half forgotten in 8 00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:27.839 the corners. I like days like that, when it didn't 9 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:31.320 matter that nobody came in for hours. The library felt cozier, 10 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:34.560 my own territory. It was nearly three o'clock, and for 11 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:36.679 the moment I was alone at the rear stacks, tied 12 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:40.479 in the oversized biographies. That afternoon, I noticed no My 13 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:42.520 hand landed on a hard back, so none scrat it 14 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:45.159 might as well have been a brick. No spine label, 15 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:49.119 no barcoat sticker, not even a fading ink stamp. Braylenine 16 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:51.280 scoffed at the edges, the spines so flat it could 17 00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:54.079 almost vanish against the battered shelf. I turned it over 18 00:00:54.159 --> 00:00:57.399 and looked for any trace of title. Nothing, just clothe 19 00:00:57.439 --> 00:01:00.119 in the memory of someone's thumb pressure. Over time, we 20 00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:02.600 get a lot of odd donations, usually box lots from 21 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:05.359 clearing in a state of someone desperate for space. I 22 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:08.079 figured this book was another blank journal the sought students 23 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:11.159 used for drawing or travelers for their grand plans. I 24 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:14.439 thound the covers apart, expecting the usual grood or ivory pages. 25 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:18.599 Every sheet start to finish blank, rough, faintly yellowed, like 26 00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:20.439 paper that had sat a decade in some dry attic. 27 00:01:21.079 --> 00:01:24.439 There was even a whispery vanilla or papercent. I wrapped 28 00:01:24.439 --> 00:01:27.480 my knuckle on the binding, which was surprisingly firm and shrugged. 29 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:30.760 Blank notebooks aren't catalog, but I wasn't about to toss it. 30 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:33.959 The library loves forgotten things, and sometimes blank books end 31 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.680 up as local project journals or guest books. I put 32 00:01:36.719 --> 00:01:38.680 it on the little metal cot label to be processed 33 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:41.159 part beside the rolling ladder, near the cramped reading room. 34 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:44.120 My next task was straightforward, bring in the daisery shelves 35 00:01:44.159 --> 00:01:46.599 straight in the room, check for abandoned mugs or jackets. 36 00:01:47.239 --> 00:01:49.680 The rear reading room is overlooked. Its men features are 37 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:52.079 a single tall window with edging so old it flakes pained, 38 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.959 a low slump arm share with fridberg green upholstery, three 39 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.079 mismuch side tables, a warp bookcase, and a tan carpet 40 00:01:58.159 --> 00:02:01.120 that never looks clean. Nobody ye requested, it just is. 41 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:04.159 Usually there is an echo of the main hall's activity. 42 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:06.799 But to day only the rain moved. I dragged the 43 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:10.000 cart in the wheel, singing against the threshold by habit. 44 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:12.039 I propped the odd hard back on the low table, 45 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:14.759 intending to leave it for later. While I worked, I 46 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:17.639 half watched the well through the street glass. Then, at 47 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.240 a stupe to reposition in atlas, I noticed the book again. 48 00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:21.800 Maybe it was the way the faint blue of rainy 49 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:25.000 daylight found the page edges. I stepped over and opened it, 50 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:27.800 aiming to check once more for annotations or code. This 51 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:31.000 time there was writing. It was faint, almost a mirage, 52 00:02:31.039 --> 00:02:33.639 but on the right hand page delicate lines wove across 53 00:02:33.639 --> 00:02:36.560 the fibers ink, but more like grafited at the point 54 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:39.759 where it begins to vanish handriton, as if the words 55 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:41.599 had always been there, yet only now were summoned up 56 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:44.319 by light or use. The letter is described in a 57 00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:47.319 close lipping hand. A faded rug, a single window framed 58 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:49.680 in dusty curtains, a soft blue light filtered by rain. 59 00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:53.280 My stomach made a small and voluntary jump. The first 60 00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:56.120 harness thought was someone striped out a journal and left 61 00:02:56.159 --> 00:02:58.680 it as a joke. But the next thought caught a rock, 62 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:01.520 a window and dusty curtain, blue lighth and I looked up. 63 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:04.120 I was standing on that rug in the rain. The 64 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:07.360 curtain was slumped bran edged. The filtered light exactly as described, 65 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:10.879 specific but unremarkable. It described any shabby room in a building. 66 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:13.919 This sold. Still the effect was peculiar. I'd opened a 67 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:16.000 blank book and found a record of the space created 68 00:03:16.039 --> 00:03:17.719 only in the instant I chose to look for it. 69 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:20.599 I pressed my thumb against the page, as at expecting 70 00:03:20.599 --> 00:03:24.919 the lines to transfer or perhaps vanish. Nothing. The ink 71 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:27.639 did not fade or smudge. There was no imprint on 72 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:31.199 the back. I flipped forwards and backwards a few more pages, 73 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:35.199 utterly blank. I left the book open, cautious and yet amused, 74 00:03:35.319 --> 00:03:39.120 and finished shelling. The rain rattled louder. Two high school 75 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:40.919 kids dumbled through to get to the WiFi d ed 76 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.360 zone in the Genealogy microfilm curve, the kind of kids 77 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:46.039 who'd rather not see a staff member. When I passed 78 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.400 the odd book again. The writing was faintly visible, though 79 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:50.479 perhaps les so, as if in another minute it would 80 00:03:50.479 --> 00:03:53.319 sink back into invisibility. I didn't know what to make 81 00:03:53.319 --> 00:03:56.120 of it. By closing time, I flicked the overhead light, 82 00:03:56.199 --> 00:03:58.080 carried the book back to my desk, and dropped it 83 00:03:58.120 --> 00:04:01.319 in the processed tray with the paperbacks. I told myself, 84 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:03.520 trick of the light, heat and humidity in masking some 85 00:04:03.560 --> 00:04:06.039 invisible ink may be a left of rewriting prompt from 86 00:04:06.039 --> 00:04:09.199 a library program years gone. Still, for the rest of 87 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:11.520 the evening I found myself glancing at that room's window, 88 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:14.879 the soft blue filtering through, and wondered. The next morning, 89 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:18.920 the library felt steadier, all routines and familiar voices. Wednesdays 90 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:21.920 met Marjorie arrived first, always bustling past, her hair pinned 91 00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:24.279 up like a period drama, bags of hand puppets jangling 92 00:04:24.279 --> 00:04:27.199 at her side. She was the children's story time queen, 93 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:30.480 cheerful and inexhaustible, with a gravelly voice perfect for pirate tales. 94 00:04:31.199 --> 00:04:33.600 Mister Sykes clocked in half an hour later, wheeling his 95 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:35.879 mop bucket and greeting me with a muto thirsty weather. 96 00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:40.079 This because he always commented on the forecast rain or shine. Jamie, 97 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:43.399 our college volunteer, arrived just before noon. Herbert's in place 98 00:04:43.519 --> 00:04:45.720 hair in a perpetual state of either drying or growing out, 99 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:49.199 depending on semester's stress. The library itself one of those 100 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:51.480 breck and Stone hybrid's grand fathered into the city when 101 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:54.800 postwar Optimism still built public places to last boffer dignity 102 00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:57.879 as well as drafts. The entry landed guests between a 103 00:04:57.879 --> 00:05:01.040 flight of tesselated stairs and the circulation day esque. There 104 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:03.160 you got the best view of our prized stained glass, 105 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:06.560 a stylized crest, book and branch, sunlight dappling through blue, 106 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:09.800 scarlet and amber. The apper floors ciled around in dog 107 00:05:09.879 --> 00:05:13.319 lakes and alcoves, reading nicks built wherever investors lost interest 108 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:16.759 in maximizing efficiency. I had worked here nearly twelve years. 109 00:05:16.759 --> 00:05:19.600 People joked that I had the g numbers memorized made 110 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:22.279 close to true. They also said it behind the joke, 111 00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:24.399 that I had an embarrassing fondness for the fussy aspects 112 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:27.680 of library work, fixing tone spines, tracking the place returns, 113 00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:30.839 even knowing the vague histories of paintings, curios, and the 114 00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:33.639 anonymous donations that trickled in as people moved or passed away. 115 00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:36.040 That reading room at the back was our smallest, more 116 00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:39.199 vestibule than sanctuary, though we labeled it the show room 117 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:42.000 after some founding donor whose porkerd no longer ham Almost 118 00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:44.079 everyone just called at the old room, as if the 119 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:47.000 rest of the building were new. By comparison, most days 120 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.319 it was empty and less Misseslin wandered than with her 121 00:05:49.319 --> 00:05:51.800 cane and a several layers of cardigans or to moss. 122 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:54.079 The quiet chess player hovered the while waiting for an opponent. 123 00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:57.000 The high schoolers liked its gloom when they didn't want 124 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:59.639 to be seen. On bright days, of rays of light 125 00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:03.040 turned the desmotes into gold convetti. Sometimes I thought it 126 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:06.279 did seem the perfect setting for secrets. When staff cutbacks 127 00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:09.040 left me the sole opener or closer, I discovered little treasures. 128 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:11.040 There are receipt hut behind a radiator, a coil of 129 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:14.079 faded twine in the window sash, contributions of carefully stacked 130 00:06:14.079 --> 00:06:17.560 stones hidden behind books. None had meaning unless you loved 131 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:20.879 history an entropy, which I did That Wednesday, after the 132 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:23.279 library emptied for lunch hour, I slipped back to the 133 00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:26.480 reading room. The mysterious book under my arm. The earlier 134 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:29.959 writing hovered in my mind, tantalizing and absurd. I'd convinced 135 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.839 myself it was all lighting and humidity. But my curiosity 136 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:34.720 had sharpened a puzzle with so much better than a 137 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:37.720 tidy answer. I sat at the wabbly table, rain drumming 138 00:06:37.759 --> 00:06:41.399 on the glass, opened the book. The pages were blank. 139 00:06:42.079 --> 00:06:44.600 I waited, glancing at the window, the rug under my shoe, 140 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:46.800 the curls of paint on the window sill. Then on 141 00:06:46.839 --> 00:06:49.480 the fifth page, incappeared a slow unfolding, as if secret 142 00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:52.319 handwriting developed by some chemical trick. A green shaded desk 143 00:06:52.399 --> 00:06:54.439 lamp in the corner. It is like casting a circle 144 00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:56.800 on thridburre rug. I turned my head to let my 145 00:06:56.839 --> 00:07:00.319 eyes sweep the room. No lamb, no green shape, not 146 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:02.399 even a table in the coroner, only a stack of 147 00:07:02.399 --> 00:07:07.079 obsolete national geographic back issues. I frowned. Had I misunderstood 148 00:07:07.160 --> 00:07:11.639 yesterday's phenomenon? Was it describing something not yet present? Predicting, 149 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:14.720 not recording. I left the room, book in hand and 150 00:07:14.839 --> 00:07:17.959 walked out into the stacks. Back at the circulation desk, 151 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:21.120 I turned the pages. They were blank, start to finish. 152 00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:24.920 The previous day's lines had vanished. I waited to try 153 00:07:24.959 --> 00:07:27.240 different light, even breathed warm air on the page, hoping 154 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:31.079 for invisible ink effects. Nothing. I marched back to the 155 00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:34.639 reading room, determined to find the experiment's flaw just inside. 156 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:37.399 I hesitated because while the rest of the space matched 157 00:07:37.399 --> 00:07:39.600 my expectations, there on the side table near the old 158 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:42.000 radiator sat a green shaded desk lamp. For I saw 159 00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:44.240 and bent its glass deep and foresty. Was a little final, 160 00:07:44.279 --> 00:07:46.879 shaped like a pine cone. It was on a gentle 161 00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:50.160 hommerizing from within circles of yellow light brushing the carpet. 162 00:07:50.680 --> 00:07:55.040 I stopped, looked away, looked back. It was mundane at anything, 163 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:57.680 just old, a bit dusty with a pul chain. But 164 00:07:57.839 --> 00:08:00.759 I was sure, with a sudden spine, prickly certainty, that 165 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:03.040 it hadn't been there yesterday, or at any other time 166 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:05.560 in my memory. Nobody else was in the room to 167 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:09.639 witness my confusion. Downstairs, I found Jamie catalog in graphic novels, 168 00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:13.240 eerband slooped off one earhood, decorated with enamel pins. Did 169 00:08:13.279 --> 00:08:15.160 we always have a green desks lamp in the old 170 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:19.040 reading room? I asked, trying to sound bland Jamie, barely 171 00:08:19.079 --> 00:08:22.519 glancing up, nodded the bank style one. Yeah, it's ancient. 172 00:08:22.600 --> 00:08:24.480 The bulb buzzes a little, but it's always been in 173 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:28.480 the corner, like forever. Why I didn't answer. The next 174 00:08:28.519 --> 00:08:32.720 person I encountered was Mistress Syke's fairying cleaning bottles a 175 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:35.080 green lamb in the back room, I tossed out, feigning 176 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:39.320 idle interest that original or a more recent fixture. He 177 00:08:39.399 --> 00:08:42.240 peered at me, plucked at his gray mustache. Had it 178 00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:45.919 way back, he said, Bold library staff wouldn't throw away 179 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:48.879 a working lamp. Now bit touchy about bulbs, that's all. 180 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.679 It shouldn't have rattled me. Old libraries are graveyards for 181 00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:56.919 unwonted objects, and memory is unreliable at best. But everyone 182 00:08:56.919 --> 00:08:59.519 else seemed fully at ease with its existence. Faintly perplexed, 183 00:08:59.559 --> 00:09:02.559 I'd even asked that night I put the blank book away, 184 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.519 but a prowled at the edges of my thoughts, not fear, 185 00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:08.840 not even dread more, kind of restless, electric desire to understand, 186 00:09:09.559 --> 00:09:12.600 not go story and rest. No, just the stubborn inche 187 00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:16.039 of an unsolved puzzle. My favorite thing about librarianship is 188 00:09:16.039 --> 00:09:17.840 the way a whole building becomes as noble as a 189 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:20.600 favorite poem. You memorized the olds to cut off the 190 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:23.200 old heat pipes, a click of each lock, A slightly 191 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:25.720 raised board behind the microfiche station that always trips the 192 00:09:25.720 --> 00:09:30.159 cot wheel. There are patterns, volumes, histories nestled everywhere. So 193 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:32.240 I resolved if this book in that room were acting 194 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:35.440 out some strange pattern, I'd log it. Patterns long enough 195 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:39.039 always revealed themselves. The next day I staged small tests 196 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:42.679 under pretense of reorganizing that book with a shifting script. 197 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:45.399 Sat at my elbow. I waited until, wait, until the 198 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:48.159 building emptied, but for mister Sykes's whistling somewhat too falls 199 00:09:48.159 --> 00:09:51.120 away and slip into the reading room. I opened the book, 200 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:54.960 knowing at first only the sparkle of Deuss on paper. Then, 201 00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:57.960 after a breath, more words crept forth. A tarnished brasque 202 00:09:58.039 --> 00:10:00.360 upe stand by the window. Continents faded by day at a 203 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:03.320 frame photograph of a steamer at sea. I took stock. 204 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:06.200 There was nothing by the window but the usual piles 205 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:08.360 of back issues and the potted plant Jamie kept trying 206 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:12.320 to revive. No globe, no photograph. I closed the book, 207 00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:14.240 left it on the table, turned the light off, and 208 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:16.720 left for the evening. By mid day the next day, 209 00:10:16.799 --> 00:10:18.679 the reading room had a brass globe about the size 210 00:10:18.679 --> 00:10:21.679 of a cantelope, its surface crashed lines of longitude eroded, 211 00:10:21.720 --> 00:10:25.039 bracketed by a brass axis. It perched on the windowsill 212 00:10:25.039 --> 00:10:27.519 as if it had always belonged there, and near the 213 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:30.080 radiator a small frame photograph, a black and white shot, 214 00:10:30.120 --> 00:10:33.519 blurry but mistakable esteam supplying a distant, foggy see. Both 215 00:10:33.559 --> 00:10:35.879 were unremarkable, and yet gave the room a certain gravity, 216 00:10:35.919 --> 00:10:37.879 the sense of a place that had mattered for decades. 217 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:42.000 I started a lock part noebook, part security brief. I 218 00:10:42.039 --> 00:10:44.120 wrote the date and time, The precise lines the book 219 00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:47.320 reveal the next day's inventory of the room. After every 220 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:50.080 fresh description, alarm or globe, afore to reach item appeared 221 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:52.679 in the room within hours. The first time it happened, 222 00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:54.879 I called Jamie up from the main floor asked about 223 00:10:54.879 --> 00:10:58.799 the new globe. Jamie nodded, that old thing. I guess 224 00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:01.360 I never gave it much thought. Maybe it's moved around, 225 00:11:01.399 --> 00:11:04.000 but it's been hereriers Miss Ceciline always shows into her 226 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.360 grand kids. Her tone was dismissive and edge of amusement, 227 00:11:07.399 --> 00:11:09.840 as if I were an on a joke, furious to 228 00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:13.399 flapped down as ceslind herself. Next, she did not mis abeat, 229 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:16.240 of course, the globe that children loved to find our 230 00:11:16.279 --> 00:11:18.159 old countries. I've always told them it was a gift 231 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:21.440 from an explorer. Ha. She waved her cane for emphasis, 232 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:24.240 eyes sharp and twinkling. It was as if the item 233 00:11:24.279 --> 00:11:27.360 had never been new. Everyone's lips gripped perfect into a 234 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:30.159 back story, each with varying levels of embellishment, but believing 235 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:34.360 deeply in their versions. The photograph two unleashed anecdotes. That's 236 00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:37.360 the Liusitania, or maybe the old fairy line donated by 237 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:40.799 the Lion's Club what seventy two? Maybe I could not 238 00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:43.759 find a witness to the moment of arrival. I scanned 239 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:47.840 the donation logs, the archived acquisition forums. Nothing marked brass 240 00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:51.240 clode or framed steamship among the recent inventory. Trying to 241 00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:53.200 break the cycle, I hid the globe behind the reference 242 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:56.000 shelf before opening. The next day. It was gone from 243 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.600 the hiding spot on back in the reading room, precisely 244 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:00.360 on the window sill, as if it had never left. 245 00:12:00.919 --> 00:12:02.960 To Moss frowned when it was missing. Later he was 246 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.159 faintly annoyed. Somebody keeps misplacing the globe, he muttered, as 247 00:12:06.159 --> 00:12:09.519 if this were a common occurrence. When it reappeared, nobody 248 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:13.360 seemed surprised. I thought about hidden magnates, about elaborate pranks. 249 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.639 But there was a peculiar economy to the process, no excess, 250 00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:19.960 no further objects conjured beyond those written. And the written 251 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.240 words arrived as if cued by the room's own routines, 252 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:25.480 always faint, always describing not just things, but arrangement's placement. 253 00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:28.519 Where the quality of sunlight as it fell. I watched 254 00:12:28.519 --> 00:12:31.440 the security footage, such as it was. Our camera catchures 255 00:12:31.480 --> 00:12:33.799 only the main entrance in the hallway outside the staff room, 256 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:36.039 so it was a feeble hope. But I scanned the 257 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:39.759 footage for any one carrying in a global lamp or photo. Nothing. 258 00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:42.360 The most I saw was Jamie breezing past with the 259 00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:46.080 mark Missescilin, shepherding a group of third graders, not so 260 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:48.240 much as a glimmer of a glove's reflection as it 261 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:51.600 entered the building. My initial suspicion that I was misremembering 262 00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:53.799 out of step, eyes clouded by overwork, began to give 263 00:12:53.840 --> 00:12:57.000 way to something altogether. Stranger, items did not appear out 264 00:12:57.039 --> 00:12:59.240 of thin air. While I looked away, the materialized with 265 00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:01.720 a kind of backwards inevitability. The history is written onto 266 00:13:01.759 --> 00:13:04.440 the very minds of those around me. Then I tried 267 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:08.519 another experiment. I waited until the library closed, made sure 268 00:13:08.559 --> 00:13:11.480 I was alone. The book, as always, sat unassumingly on 269 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:14.360 the table. I opened it pen in hand and copied 270 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:16.840 out the most recent of its faint phrases, framed photograph 271 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:19.480 of a steamer at sea. I added beneath it my 272 00:13:19.519 --> 00:13:22.080 own speculative description a silver plate. A compass resting on 273 00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:25.840 the lamp base posed the book. Next morning, there was 274 00:13:25.879 --> 00:13:29.320 no compass. The book's official writing faded with daylight, and 275 00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:32.879 though the photo remained, nothing else changed. The staff, as 276 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:36.879 always believed in their accumulated details, shimmy, raised an eyebrow 277 00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:38.919 when I asked about the compass. What compass? Ye're the 278 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:42.240 one who finds stuff, missus Lynde schroved and dismissed the question. 279 00:13:42.919 --> 00:13:46.240 I considered going further, removing something permanently, or perhaps leaving 280 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:49.360 a note. I'd even tried one evening, bringing the book 281 00:13:49.399 --> 00:13:52.559 home on the kitchen table. That night, it was utterly blank. 282 00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:55.240 Once I brought the book to the main hall and 283 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:58.600 opened it. While Marjorie woke the desk. No words appeared, 284 00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:01.080 just the texture of the old paper. When I returned 285 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:03.200 to the reading room, the faint lines crept forth again, 286 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:06.840 their revelations, always modest but precise, only there only with 287 00:14:06.919 --> 00:14:09.320 me present, war I began to suspect, with any one 288 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:13.200 willing to notice. Sometimes the writing would specify a texture 289 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:15.320 of plaid cushion ringed by age, a pattern of where 290 00:14:15.399 --> 00:14:17.919 chalk scuff on the desk edge, or smell fained room 291 00:14:17.919 --> 00:14:19.759 of pine from the closet door, though the cause it 292 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:22.360 held nothing but an umbrella stand in fox ball games. 293 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:26.440 Every detail described was fulfilled textures, arrangements, even the angle 294 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.120 of the chair by the window. Peering around the room, 295 00:14:29.159 --> 00:14:30.960 it began to dawn on me that the rigidity I 296 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:33.279 had prized about the library sensed that it was stable, 297 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:37.000 known an erring was quietly false. What became unnerving but 298 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:40.440 also fascinating with the way others memories walked to these alterations, 299 00:14:40.519 --> 00:14:43.919 smoothing away any incumbruty. I asked miss Eslyne how old 300 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:47.320 the frame photograph was, and she quinted. Fingers laid in contemplation, 301 00:14:47.679 --> 00:14:50.279 it arrived after the renovations in seventy four. I think 302 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:52.639 we had such a dreadful leak that when show himself 303 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:55.320 his grandson, maybe he donated that globe, or perhaps it 304 00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:58.879 was earlier. Misses Lyne's account did not match Jamie's. Jamie 305 00:14:58.879 --> 00:15:01.440 insisted the globe always by the radiator until they fixed 306 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:04.639 the window. Then it moved. Missus Sykes remembered painting around 307 00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:07.200 it sometime before we got central air, but also thought 308 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:09.759 the lamp came from a library sale in nineteen ninety nine. 309 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:12.519 None of these histories lined up. They each filled the 310 00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:17.360 available memory with plausible but mutually incompatible narratives. If I press, 311 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:20.679 it became slightly uncomfortable, then sure, spinning new stories as 312 00:15:20.679 --> 00:15:23.759 if the room required them for substantiation. I realized then 313 00:15:23.799 --> 00:15:27.039 that whatever was happening was recursive, not simply predictive. The 314 00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:31.039 book wrote lined objects appeared to memories reconfigured, But sometimes 315 00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:33.720 I saw the retroactivity more clearly. One evening, the text 316 00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:36.799 described window seat with blue cushion worn from years of stories. 317 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:40.000 I checked the window sill, no seat, no cushion, just 318 00:15:40.039 --> 00:15:43.480 the standard ledge. The next morning, a genuine window seat, 319 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:47.519 complete with blue quolted cushion hugged the glass, Jamie returning 320 00:15:47.559 --> 00:15:50.240 a box of returns, casually perched on it. Why haven't 321 00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:52.919 I noticed how comfy this is? Puzzled, I checked my 322 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:56.200 own log I noticed something else. A prior entry made 323 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:59.120 during an earlier session described the chest set near the radiator, 324 00:15:59.639 --> 00:16:01.840 but the yes that had already existed before I'd seen 325 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:03.799 the new lines about the window seat with blue cushion. 326 00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:06.480 The sequence was not as tightly cause an effect as 327 00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:09.919 I had thought. Sometimes the book referenced items already present, 328 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:12.080 as if its revelations were both before and after the 329 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:15.799 room's changes. Determined to test this are compared duty rosters, 330 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:19.519 maintenance logs, every record I could find. Sheer and blow 331 00:16:19.559 --> 00:16:23.120 made no appearance in last months inventory spreadsheets, yet this 332 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.720 week they were precisely and calmly cataloged, woven into old entries, 333 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:29.000 as if they had been always there. When a scout 334 00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:30.799 doc have a photo of snapshots of the reading room 335 00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:33.639 taken over decades for newsletters or annual reports, I saw, 336 00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:36.919 with increasing incredulity, the lamp and corners, the globe and shatters. 337 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:40.480 Sometimes the placements didn't quite match their current positions, but 338 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:43.320 always they were there backgrounded or half visible, the continuity 339 00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:46.279 of their existence almost absolute. I wondered if I was 340 00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:48.399 losing my sense of time, or if the phenomenon, as 341 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:50.679 more intimate. Was the book cause in memory changes or 342 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:53.320 simply reflecting what had always been possible In this enclave 343 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:57.679 of slow history, the possibility was quietly intoxicating. Nothing about 344 00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:01.480 the objects was showy, nor did their existence generate fear. Rather, 345 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:04.079 the reading room seemed to be an experimental pocket, things 346 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:06.960 written in hand, things remembered into being, their histories knit 347 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:10.799 seamlessly into the documentary and collective record. It was not magic, 348 00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:14.359 but something gentler, recursive, a membrane between story and reality 349 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:18.440 that thinned whenever curiosity dwelled. I tried gently to alert others. 350 00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:22.799 Jamie was pragmatic, skeptical. You overlook stuff all the time, 351 00:17:22.839 --> 00:17:25.960 she said, biting into her apple brow rays the reading 352 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:29.720 room accumulate shadows. You note that she didn't entirely dismiss me, 353 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:31.519 but I could tell she found the story more amusing 354 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:35.960 than alarming. Missesslin only looked pleased. Old libraries, she said, 355 00:17:36.079 --> 00:17:38.400 are like bonds. They accreed their own clutter and history. 356 00:17:38.519 --> 00:17:40.880 Bit by bit, every object in here has been misplaced 357 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:44.079 and found a dozen times over, but neither could explain how. 358 00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:47.559 For days, their new items arrived with plausible baxteries slotted 359 00:17:47.559 --> 00:17:50.799 neatly into collective memory. Others remembered using the globe of 360 00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:54.200 as children recognized the photograph as a local artifact, waxed 361 00:17:54.279 --> 00:17:57.799 nostalgic on the green lamps soft ham. The contradictions deepened. 362 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.720 Each recollection was certain, yet subtly and comparatible with the others, 363 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:03.319 as if the room crave memory but cared little for precision. 364 00:18:03.720 --> 00:18:06.000 The longer I pursued the phenomenon, the more my own 365 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:09.559 notes looked circular. I crossed him across details, finding no 366 00:18:09.640 --> 00:18:12.599 fixed beginning. The book remained the only stable element. Every 367 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:15.079 day it revealed some new detail while I was present, 368 00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:17.880 and every night of reverted to blank. Opening it in 369 00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:22.160 other rooms produced nothing. Curiosity became my only anchor. There 370 00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:24.839 was a certain delight in recording each delicate contradiction, even 371 00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:26.880 as the sturdy certainty I had always relied on the 372 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:30.599 cataloger's pride began to fray. One afternoon, after closing, I 373 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:32.960 brought the book into the reading room and waited at 374 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:35.759 light outside. Dimmed rain had given way to the graphache 375 00:18:35.799 --> 00:18:38.480 Colm of early Dusk. I opened the book. Then a 376 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:41.519 fresh line emerged, slow and deliberate, window seat with blue cushion, 377 00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:44.599 worn from years of stories. This time, though, when I 378 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:46.880 looked up, the window seat already existed, as if it 379 00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:50.200 had been waiting for my awareness. It bore slight indentation, 380 00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:53.240 a fold of faded blue. The books beside it were crumpled, 381 00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:56.079 their jackets stained the way only long used library books become. 382 00:18:56.680 --> 00:18:59.279 For one dazzling instant, I recalled a dozen instances of 383 00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:02.039 sitting there, yes, hugged to my chest, reading myself out 384 00:19:02.039 --> 00:19:04.400 of one year and into the next. But I also 385 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:07.519 remembered their impossible novelty wrote them into my logus, both 386 00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:10.160 knew and always there. It hit me it wasn't a 387 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:13.960 linear process. No simple rite then appear. Sometimes the book 388 00:19:13.960 --> 00:19:18.039 described the absent, summoned it into reality. Sometimes it annotated 389 00:19:18.039 --> 00:19:20.640 the already present, were writing the past, so it encircled 390 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:23.920 the object with memory and proof. Sometimes the act of reading, 391 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.559 sometimes the act of remembering was what shifted the room. 392 00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:29.680 The thought consumed me. Perhaps the book didn't cause anything, 393 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:32.880 but noticed what was possible. Maybe the reading room itself 394 00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:35.240 was an ode where memory and record reading and presents 395 00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:38.400 spun together in a delicate recursion. I decided to ask 396 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:40.599 others deliberately, and Chris Grost to see how far the 397 00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:43.799 anomaly would stretch. Miss Eeselyn was the first, choosing a 398 00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:46.559 late afternoon to camp in her usual throne. Thenn't the 399 00:19:46.559 --> 00:19:51.960 photograph one hand by the stairs? I probed? She blinked, goodness, No, 400 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:54.920 it's always been here since the fundraising auction in the seventies. 401 00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:56.640