Archivist’s Project 1

My name is, perhaps was, Thomas Arthur Cannon. Of that, I am almost certain. I have been in the employ of Upton Campbell, archivist and librarian of my Alma Mater, since graduation, some eleven years prior. He is a good man, by and large. However, he does possess a regrettable fondness for the occasional, or perhaps more than occasional, sherry, which he consumes with a meticulousness that would make a chemist blush. Sometimes my still youthful enthusiasm would send me to the depths of the stacks, some two floors below ground, purely to rid him of my cheeriness. After a particularly vibrant evening, such an instruction arrived, but wrapped in an intriguing project. Our basement archives had become uncomfortably crowded with events that, upon a scholar’s closer inspection, never truly occurred; or at least had gained a reputation for being entirely inconsequential. They were mere historical clutter, phantom gatherings and forgotten committees that had no business occupying valuable shelf space. I was, by long-standing habit, a slave to the Protestant work ethic, and thus approached even the most menial archival task as if it were a moral imperative.

My ledger, a dusty and leather-bound thing, showing signs of wear, tear and woodworm, became my sanctuary. It served as a quiet room of the mind, a place where I could curate reality by carefully striking through these redundancies. Outside these damp walls, my life was a tapestry of spiritual and horticultural duty. I served on the local church council, a role that involved a great deal of gravity and an even greater deal of debating the exact diameter of the parish flower pots. When not in committee or performing family duties, I dedicated myself to my garden. It was my own small kingdom where every pruned branch and uprooted weed served as a metaphor for the order I sought in the world. I often imagined editing the archive as akin to pruning a hedge that had grown too dense and tangled. I suspect my colleagues would have found the methodology tedious, perhaps even deeply strange, yet I felt a quiet satisfaction in correcting the record. There was a sense of order to be restored.

“You are the only one sufficiently diligent to undertake the task,” Campbell had said. A complimentary phrase that fell flat in the light of being the only junior archivist beneath Campbell’s airy position.

I settled into the dim light of the cellar, sharpened my nib, and prepared to set history to rights, one correction at a time.