The Archivist’s Project 2

On returning after a rousing weekend of friendship and frivolity, I began to harbour the uncomfortable suspicion that my efforts were not those of an editor, but of an unspooler. I was not merely recording history, as was my usual position; I was actively unravelling the fabric of the present. Removing the stock from the soup.

The ledger ceased to be a passive archive and became an agent of active negation. Every stroke of the nib was a transaction, and I grew increasingly certain that the bank was running alarmingly low on funds. The ink itself had altered in character. It flowed from the nib with a sluggish, viscous weight, seemingly intent on drinking the very air from the basement chamber.

I recalled the method by which flies regurgitate digestive enzymes in order to feed, and saw my pen, not striking out information, but eating the fabric of reality. The gold pen I had received as a graduation present from my university sweetheart, now my wife, took on a mantis-like aspect, and I felt an instinctive urge to crush it underfoot. I sat in the dim, oppressive silence, watching the shadows inexplicably lengthen, and wondered precisely what I was paying for with this growing, dark depletion.

The quiet of the basement was broken by the squeak and huff of the duelling swing doors that separated the stacks from the office. It was Peter, a fellow clerk who worked in ‘Special Collections.’

“Still at it, Thomas?” he asked.

“For the duration,” I replied.

“I thought I might bring you some refreshment,” he said, with a nervous smile.

Peter had made it his mission to ensure that the other staff and I were well refreshed. He often brought in biscuits or other consumables which I suspect he made himself, his mother having passed several years ago and a wife, or girlfriend, had never been mentioned. I thanked him for his kindness and he smiled, taking the mug from the tray and placing it, along with an opened box of biscuits, in front of me.

He shuddered, and his eyes darted from side to side and then fixed on a blank corner of the archive. He had become quite pale and clammy. He had a nervous disposition at the best of times, but today it seemed more pronounced. He sat down next to me and visibly shivered, despite the oppressive, humid warmth of the lower level.

“The choir is in a state again,” he murmured, picking at his fingernail. “Miss Gable insists on the Tallis for Sunday, but the sopranos are entirely convinced it is beyond their capabilities.”

“It is,” I said, perhaps unkindly.

“It is a dreadful row, really…” he said, voice trailing off. His eyes darted towards the shelves and then returned briefly to the same blank corner that had unnerved him so… He didn’t wait for any further response. His eyes wide and unblinking, his throat bobbing as if something was trying to escape.

“I should return to the main floor,” he said, having sat for little more than a few seconds. His visits usually consisted of a good half-hour of salacious conversation, punctuated by raucous laughter.

“The air down here,” he simpered, “is, well, it is remarkably thin, don’t you think?”

I did not.

He retreated with unseemly haste, leaving his tea untouched and the biscuits in front of me. I shouted to him that he had left them behind. He was usually quite precious about who he gave them to and how many he allowed each person. He merely raised a hand in a perfunctory wave, and he was gone. A sense of mild detachment settled over me. He had been unsettled by nothing in particular, not that I could determine, yet his departure left the room feeling even more vacuous than before.

I realise, with a small shock, that the archive is not the only thing keeping time. Something else ticks beneath it; a stubborn, off-beat rhythm, a ghost-clock marking a different chronology.

I cannot read it yet, but I know it is there, waiting for me to fall into its frequency…