Post by thegingerbarrister on Mar 19, 2020 9:37:05 GMT -5
Happy Thursday, friend!
I’ve done my best to get used to the idea of “hiding from time,” as Clarke's Three Laws told me recently. The funny thing is I was never a very timely person, before I came here. I lost track of it quite often, and didn’t place a great deal of importance on being perfectly punctual. But as soon as it’s not only gone, but deliberately obfuscated, the lack of time has been shockingly uncomfortable.
So I’ve tried to sit with that discomfort and make friends with it instead of fighting with it. When I really questioned what was bothering me so much, it became clear immediately that the problem was less about how time was operating (or not) inside the Library, but what was happening outside of it. Or, to be more precise, what the relationship was between those two states of time.
I’m not afraid of time passing slower outside the library… in fact, some part of me would find this a great relief. That, having nodded off while reading again, I’ll wake up and all the months I’d been away would quickly collapse into the space of a dream. I’d be left with a few ghostly sense impressions and a sore neck, and as deeply sad as it would be to lose everything else, there’s still some part of me that would be relieved.
No, what really scares me is the thought that time is passing much more quickly outside of this space, and I am being left behind.
I read a story once about a pair of cave explorers, Senni and Laures, who spent months alone in a pair of caves in the French Alps. They were working with a selenologist, Michel Siffre, who was studying the effects of isolation on people. Time got very strange for Laures and Siffre, each in their own quiet, dark chambers. Laures knitted and befriended a white mouse, while Senni could sleep for 30 hours at a stretch, thinking he’d just nodded off for a little while.
The thing that always haunted me about this story was that when Laures stepped out of her cave after 88 days, she thought it was February 25th when it was actually March 12th. Her accounting was off by a full two weeks, as days and nights lengthened and her sleep cycle wore out, her circadian rhythm losing sync with the sun. When Senni stepped out after 126 days, he thought it was only February 4th when it was actually April 5th. Somewhere in his marathon sleep sessions, deep in that cave, he lost 61 days.
I am surrounded by stacks instead of stalactites, but I wonder if the same thing is happening to me. Are days disappearing, unaccounted for, every time I fall asleep?
The Boundless Library tells stories in many strange and unusual ways, including Borrowings, our podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the Library, and tactile stories like A Feather in Dust, available for preorder now.
Best,
Alice
Apprentice (of sorts)
The Boundless Library
I’ve done my best to get used to the idea of “hiding from time,” as Clarke's Three Laws told me recently. The funny thing is I was never a very timely person, before I came here. I lost track of it quite often, and didn’t place a great deal of importance on being perfectly punctual. But as soon as it’s not only gone, but deliberately obfuscated, the lack of time has been shockingly uncomfortable.
So I’ve tried to sit with that discomfort and make friends with it instead of fighting with it. When I really questioned what was bothering me so much, it became clear immediately that the problem was less about how time was operating (or not) inside the Library, but what was happening outside of it. Or, to be more precise, what the relationship was between those two states of time.
I’m not afraid of time passing slower outside the library… in fact, some part of me would find this a great relief. That, having nodded off while reading again, I’ll wake up and all the months I’d been away would quickly collapse into the space of a dream. I’d be left with a few ghostly sense impressions and a sore neck, and as deeply sad as it would be to lose everything else, there’s still some part of me that would be relieved.
No, what really scares me is the thought that time is passing much more quickly outside of this space, and I am being left behind.
I read a story once about a pair of cave explorers, Senni and Laures, who spent months alone in a pair of caves in the French Alps. They were working with a selenologist, Michel Siffre, who was studying the effects of isolation on people. Time got very strange for Laures and Siffre, each in their own quiet, dark chambers. Laures knitted and befriended a white mouse, while Senni could sleep for 30 hours at a stretch, thinking he’d just nodded off for a little while.
The thing that always haunted me about this story was that when Laures stepped out of her cave after 88 days, she thought it was February 25th when it was actually March 12th. Her accounting was off by a full two weeks, as days and nights lengthened and her sleep cycle wore out, her circadian rhythm losing sync with the sun. When Senni stepped out after 126 days, he thought it was only February 4th when it was actually April 5th. Somewhere in his marathon sleep sessions, deep in that cave, he lost 61 days.
I am surrounded by stacks instead of stalactites, but I wonder if the same thing is happening to me. Are days disappearing, unaccounted for, every time I fall asleep?
The Boundless Library tells stories in many strange and unusual ways, including Borrowings, our podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the Library, and tactile stories like A Feather in Dust, available for preorder now.
Best,
Alice
Apprentice (of sorts)
The Boundless Library