index

The materials comprising Collection P-7 arrived in eleven boxes of varied provenance. Standard intake protocols were observed, though the donor’s identity remains unclear due to administrative oversights since corrected. The collection spans approximately forty-three years and contains personal correspondence, photographic materials, ephemera, and miscellaneous documents pertaining to a single individual.

I ate toast this morning. Two thin slices, lightly buttered, with the marmalade that has been sitting in the refrigerator since — when did I buy that marmalade? The jar bears no date of purchase, of course, though the illegible expiration suggests sometime in the distant past. The taste remains acceptable, if somewhat crystallised around the edges. I ate standing, leaning on a bookshelf, reviewing my notes from yesterday’s work.

The walk to Storage Wing C took longer than anticipated. The facility’s corridors seem to extend further each day, likely a function of familiarity breeding inattention. I counted my steps: 247 from the main desk to the C-Wing entrance, then another 89 to reach the Collection P-7 staging area. The fluorescent lights overhead flicker in a pattern that seems almost rhythmic — on for seven seconds, a brief flutter, on for seven more. I have begun to time my reading by these intervals.

Initial assessment suggests remarkable completeness. One rarely encounters such thorough documentation of a civilian life — birth certificates through school records, employment documentation, personal correspondence maintained in chronological order with obsessive, almost breathtaking precision. The subject appears to have been a meticulous record-keeper, though certain gaps in the assumed timeline require further investigation.

I discovered the plant growing in the facility’s east corridor three weeks ago — perhaps longer. It emerged from a crack between the wall and floor, its thin stalks reaching toward the fluorescent lights. The leaves are uncommonly papery, almost translucent, with a texture that suggests something once substantial transformed into something more ethereal. They possess a faint but distinctive aroma — dry, reminiscent of old bindings.

When properly prepared, these leaves produce an inky infusion of remarkable depth. The ritual has become essential to my work: two and a half spoonfuls steeped for approximately seven minutes. The resulting beverage sustains concentration for hours and seems to enhance my ability to perceive patterns in documentary evidence. I have noticed that the plant produces new growth only after I have harvested its leaves.

—

Today’s journey to the P-7 materials required a detour through Storage Wing B due to maintenance work in the primary corridor. The alternative route adds seventeen minutes to the commute and passes through the periodical archives, where the shelving towers create narrow passages that seem to shift in the peripheral vision. I have noticed that Box 3 has somehow migrated three shelves higher than where I left it yesterday. Such migrations are not uncommon in facilities of this scope — climate control systems create air currents that can, over time, cause subtle repositioning of lighter materials.

Box 1-3: Early materials (1981-1999)

Birth certificate indicates unproblematic delivery at St. Mary’s Hospital, in the early evening. The handwriting on early school assignments displays the characteristic uncertainty of developing motor skills, slowly progressing to a more confident script. Of particular note: a spelling test dated October 14, 1987, containing the misspelling “achievment” for “achievement” — a charming error.

I slept poorly again last night. The domicile’s heating system produces irregular clicking sounds. I have learned to anticipate these interruptions, though knowledge does not diminish their effect. I lay in the dark, thinking about the birthday photographs in Box 3, the way the light falls consistently from the left in every image, suggesting a window placement that seems oddly familiar.

The route back to my staging area after lunch required navigating the Reference Labyrinth — what the facility manual optimistically terms “the cross-indexed manuscript storage system.” The shelving units in this section are arranged in concentric spirals, each ring containing materials organised by increasingly esoteric classification schemes. To reach the P-7 collection from the Reading Room, one must traverse Rings A through F, passing through subject classifications that begin logically (Biography; Personal Papers) and gradually become more abstract (Paradox / Heterodox; Recursive Documentation; Self-Referential Materials).

Ring F contains only three shelves, and these are always exactly where one expects them to be. This consistency, after the uncertainty of the outer rings, feels both reassuring and somehow ominous.

The family photographs from this period show standard domestic arrangements. Birthday parties with identical cake decorations year after year — yellow icing, an invariably slightly lopsided butterfly cake. The same faces appear regularly: parents, presumably, and what appears to be an older sibling. Requests for genealogical verification have not yet been processed.

For lunch I opened a can of soup. Tomato, I suppose, though the label had detached. The flavor was pleasant enough — slightly sweet, with that metallic or acidic undertone that comes from extended shelf storage. I ate it while reviewing the correspondence files, occasionally pausing to examine a postmark or return address with my magnifying glass.

The afternoon was spent relocating Boxes 8-11 to the climate-controlled section in Sub-level D. The elevator descends much further than the floor indicators suggest — pressing “D” initiates a journey that feels significantly longer than the three floors marked on the panel. The sub-level corridors extend in directions that don’t correspond to the building’s surface footprint. I have walked corridors down here that run parallel to others for what must be hundreds of metres, though the building above measures perhaps fifty metres at its widest point.

Today I discovered a new storage alcove, unmarked on any facility map, containing several boxes that appear to be part of Collection P-7 though they were not included in the original accession list. These supplementary materials will require additional processing time.

Box 4-7: Adolescent correspondence (2000-2004)

Letters to and from friends display the expected concerns of that demographic: academic anxieties, social dynamics, early romantic attachments. The handwriting has evolved into something distinctive — slightly leftward-leaning, with angular flourishes on capital letters.

Several items in this section require additional scrutiny. A birthday card from 1998 contains an inscription reading “Happy 21st Birthday!” though all documentation indicates the subject would have been sixteen at that date. The sender is identified only as “J.” A similar temporal inconsistency appears in a graduation announcement dated three months before the subject’s high school enrolment records begin.

The water from the kitchen tap runs slightly warm, even when the cold handle is turned fully. I have grown accustomed to drinking it at this temperature, though I cannot remember when this became normal. While reviewing transcripts this afternoon, I found myself holding the glass against my forehead, the lukewarm water somehow soothing against the mild headache that accompanies close work with aged documents. Something, I gather, to do with exposure to lignin.

The return journey from Sub-level D proved more challenging than the descent. Three different stairwells led to locked doors marked “Authorised Personnel Only,” though I carry the master access card for this facility. The fourth stairwell simply ended at a wall — not a door, but a seamless concrete barrier as if the stairs had been built with no intended destination. I eventually located a service elevator hidden behind a moveable shelving unit, though I have no memory of having used this route before.

Box 8-11: Higher education and fragmentary materials (2004-2012)

University transcripts indicate strong performance in library science and historical preservation. However, several courses appear in the records that do not exist in the university’s catalog: “Advanced Documentation,” “The Paradox of the Archive,” and “Methodologies in Recursive Collection Management.” Academic advisors listed for these courses cannot be located in university employment records.

Most perplexing is a library card dated 1999 for the Regional Historical Society — an institution that, according to municipal records, was not established until 2005. The photograph shows what appears to be the subject at the correct age, though the image quality is unusually sharp, atypical for the period.

I discovered I was out of bread this evening. The realisation came while reaching automatically for the loaf that has occupied the same position on the counter for — how long? The empty space felt disproportionately significant. I ate stale crackers instead, standing again at the counter, studying a photograph from the subject’s university years. The dormitory room shown in the background bears an unsettling resemblance to my current living arrangements. This is likely coincidental.

I spent forty minutes today searching for the exit to Reading Room C, despite having entered through what I believed to be the main entrance. The room’s dimensions seem to expand during extended work sessions — what begins as a modest rectangular space gradually reveals additional alcoves, side galleries, and annexes that weren’t present upon entry. I eventually located an exit, though it deposited me in Storage Wing A rather than the main corridor. The facility’s layout becomes more intuitive with experience, though “intuitive” may not be the appropriate term for a navigation system that seems to respond to intention rather than memory.

A commendation letter dated 2011 specifically mentions the subject’s “remarkable ability to reconstruct histories from fragmentary evidence,” though the letterhead bears no institutional identification and the signature is illegible.

Of greatest interest are eleven small cards discovered loose throughout these boxes. Each contains brief, cryptic passages in the subject’s handwriting, accompanied by extensive annotations in what appears to be the same hand, though the analytical style suggests considerable temporal distance between composition and analysis. The first card holds the following typeset text:

The myth of the great South persists in corners. The City’s greystone, which cannot mislead, remains vague, reproving. Thus the untruths we tell ourselves return.

Its annotation holds a confident distance, assuming much more than perhaps it should. It claims that the “great South” is a specific reference to cardinal winds that affect both the construction and weathering of civic architecture. Further, according to the subject, “greystone” and limestone are one and the same, and can be used to predict weather patterns.

I fell asleep at my desk tonight, sometime after midnight. I woke to find the desk lamp still burning and a strange taste in my mouth — not unpleasant, but unfamiliar, like copper pennies or the aftertaste of certain medications. The fragment cards were scattered around me, as if I had been arranging and rearranging them in my sleep. One had fallen to the floor, face-down beside my chair.

Upon waking, I discovered I was not in Reading Room C as expected, but in what appears to be a smaller, previously unknown workspace located behind a door marked “Staff Archives: L —.” The door handle bears the same brass patina as the others in this facility, suggesting it has been here as long as any other room, though I have no memory of its existence. My materials were arranged exactly as I had left them, despite the change in location. This room contains a narrow window overlooking what might be a courtyard, though the view shows only an expanse of grey stone and shadows that don’t correspond to any exterior architecture I’ve previously observed.

Standard protocols require additional verification of temporal inconsistencies before final processing. The unusual depth of annotation on the fragment cards suggests specialised knowledge that would require years of dedicated study. Cross-referencing with institutional employment records may clarify the subject’s qualifications, if not the location of the City itself.

This morning I found myself standing in the kitchen holding a teacup I didn’t remember filling, staring at my own reflection in the window above the sink. The inky liquid had gone cold, leaving dark sediment at the bottom. For a moment — perhaps longer — I couldn’t recall whether I was looking at myself or at a photograph I had been examining. The reflection showed someone I recognised but couldn’t quite place, the way one might recognise a distant relative in an old family portrait. I had been standing there long enough for the morning light to shift perceptibly across the counter.

When I returned to the facility, I discovered that the door to Staff Archives: L— now bears a nameplate that wasn’t there yesterday. The nameplate is tarnished brass, consistent with the facility’s other fixtures, and reads simply L—. Below this, in smaller text that requires close examination to decipher, it says “Personal Archive Specialist.” I have no memory of requesting such identification, though the lettering appears to have been there for some time.

The work continues, though certain questions multiply with each box examined.

One develops, perhaps, an inappropriate fondness for the thoroughness of this unknown individual’s documentation.