Extensions

“The Librarian” wore a dour expression on her lined face. Her grey eyes glared above the half-moon glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. A blush of pink rose with her ire in her porcelain cheeks. “What do you mean, another extension?”

Samuel shifted nervously from one foot to the other, careful to look anywhere but into those piercing eyes. His short stature, thin frame, and smooth, dun skin belied his true age, but fixing his deep brown eyes to her gaze still made him feel like a child. “There’s… extenuating circumstances,” he offered.

“Still and again, eh?” The Librarian dropped a heavy tome with a loud a thud. “This makes what, fifteen?”

“Er,” Samuel knew that she was painfully aware of just how many it was. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you know why I’m called The Librarian?” she asked.

“Er, no ma’am.”

She removed her glasses, letting them hang around her neck on the thin, gold chain that linked the ear pieces. “Because I run this place like a library. We loan. We do not sell or give away permanently.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I trust this will be the last I hear of this?”

Samuel caught her gaze, and as much as he wanted to answer in the affirmative, feared the outcome if he did and was wrong. “I… hope so?”

“You hope so!?” The Librarian almost never raised her voice. When she did, as now, the object of her wrath could feel the trembling to their bones. “That copy has been out so long it’s been superseded, not once or twice, but at least a dozen times! It’s time to retire it, now.”

With an unexpected bravado Samuel asked, “Why? If it’s still good enough for…,” he regretted his words as soon as they were out.

“It’s not ‘still good enough.’ “ The mocking tone of her reply caught him off-guard. “That copy has been in circulation for so long it’s falling apart. Losing pages here and there, and who knows how many penciled-in edits, revisions and probably flat-out vandalism by now.”

“But…”

“No buts.” She waved over another of the assistants. “Angela, have you met Samuel?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Angela stood half a head taller than Samuel, her afro extending that to a full head. Samuel didn’t need to look at her to see her eyes so dark the pupils didn’t show, her skin a warm, dark red-brown, her full lips that he often fantasized saying his name.

“Angela, I’d like you to take Samuel down to receiving.” The Librarian returned her glasses to her nose and began jotting notes on her calendar. “I know you could use some help down there, and it would be good for him to get a better understanding of how we do things here.”

“Of course, ma’am.” Angela flashed a wide, toothy smile at her. “I’ll get him straightened out in no time.”

“While I appreciate your enthusiasm,” The Librarian said, “don’t make any promises you’ll regret.”

Angela’s smile was replaced with a more serious, hard expression. “Right you are, ma’am. I’ll do my best to get him on board.”

As Samuel followed Angela to the elevator he tried to come up with some way to break the ice. Now that they’d be working together it was his best shot. They entered the elevator and Angela pushed a button for their destination.

When the doors closed Samuel hesitated for a moment, and was about to speak when Angela started instead. “Are you seriously that daft?”

“I… uh,” he stammered. “Wha-what do you mean?”

“Fifteen extensions!?” Angela laughed. “You’re the talk of the place. Sure, maybe one extension, on very rare occasions two, but fifteen! You are, without a doubt, either the bravest or the dumbest person here.”

“There are extenuating circumstances!” His voice came out rather more petulant than he would have liked.

“Look, kid,” Angela said. “You have to learn how to pick your battles. And this is one you won’t win.”

“I’m not a kid.” Samuel felt his fantasies about Angela disappear in a cloud of self-doubt. “I’m probably older than you.”

“Maybe, but you’re acting like a child.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Just because you like a borrower, or even believe that they have a very good reason to extend a loan, it’s not enough. It just isn’t done.”

“If I could just get her to hear me out, I’m sure she’d change her mind.”

“Who, The Librarian?”

“Of course, who else would I mean?”

“She doesn’t change her mind.” Angela shook her head, her afro bouncing side to side. “Never happens.”

The elevator stopped and they stepped into the receiving department; cold grey concrete slab floors and walls enclosing a utilitarian workspace. “Do you,” Samuel asked, “know her name?”

“The Librarian? Sure.” Angela guided him to her office.

“What is it?”

“I said I know her name, I didn’t say I’d tell you.” Angela stopped him and stared in eyes. “We. Do. Not. Speak. Her. Name.”

Samuel gulped. “I knew she was private, but….”

“Enough of that.” Angela led him into her office. On a bench to one side were stacks of folders, ranging from massive tomes-worth bundles of documents to those with no more than one or two sheets in them. She pulled one out of the middle of one of the stacks with a deft flick of her wrist. Samuel expected the stack to topple but it dropped into the missing space neatly with a thud. She handed it to Samuel.

He recognized the cover, even though he could see the differences right off. “This is the newest version, I guess?’”

“It is.” She opened the cover and leafed through a few pages. “Notice how clean, and notice that the language is more up-to-date.”

“Yes, but as a remote agent I have only one group to keep happy,” he said. “If they don’t want the changes, why should I push them on it?”

“I don’t know if you’re aware,” Angela said, “but I don’t spend all my time in receiving. I’m a field customer service agent as well. You’d know that if you came to the meetings. You’d also know that we are no longer called ‘remote agents.’”

“And how do your customers feel about change?”

“Some of them are all for it,” she said. “There are those who don’t like change, and don’t want it. I don’t give them a choice.” Angela walked to the far end of the office where a row of ten folders stood on a shelf. “These are their next ten. Or maybe nine,” she said, pulling one out part way. “This one is… problematic. They may reject it outright.”

“So you’ve already read them and vetted them?”

“As soon as they come in.”

Samuel raised the folder he held. “And if this one is problematic?”

“There’s another thirty or so copies in storage.” Angela stopped herself. “I meant to say versions, not copies. There are no exact copies of anything here.”

“Which makes it that much more important that my customers get the version they want.”

“It’s not about who wants what.” Angela crossed back to the bench and picked up one of the folders with only one document in it from the stack. The document inside had only a few lines on it. “Do you think anyone wants this?” She petted the cover and held it close to her heart. “Poor little thing. No, no one wants this, but it still needs to go out all the same.”

“What happens to the ones that don’t?”

“After a certain amount of time they find their way to excess shipping.” She leaned against her desk. “They go out to the lottery draw, and are passed out randomly. I’m afraid that’s the fate for this one.”

A panic hit Samuel. If those newer versions ended up in the lottery, anyone might get them. “Uh, I need to find the other versions of this, quick!”

Angela laughed. “The Librarian isn’t very good at explaining the why, just telling us the what. I knew you’d come around once you knew the whole story. That’s why the other versions are in the box by my desk.”

Samuel let out an audible sigh. “Thank you, Angela. But then, what happens when they’re returned? At the end of the loan?”

“That depends on their contents when they get here.” Angela shrugged. “Some are retired, placed in the private stacks upstairs. A few, if they’re really foul, are shredded and burned; but most are sent to recycling and returned to circulation.”

Samuel thought about that for a moment before speaking. “Well, she did say retired, not chucked in the furnace. I guess maybe it is time to get the old version back.” He added the newest version to the box and lifted it. “So, who is your customer group?”

“Roman Catholics.”

“Huh.” He looked at the row of folders on the shelf. “So that’s the next ten, or maybe only nine, popes, then?”

“Yep.” She nodded at the box he held. “And now it looks like the next thirty or so Dalai Lamas are in good hands as well.”

“Say, Angela, would you like to…”

She cut him off. “The Librarian does not allow any fraternization of Soul Repository employees. Not. At. All.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe I’ll see you around the break room sometime, eh?”

Angela smiled. “Maybe. I’ve got to get back to work now, and you need to go tell The Librarian you’ve learned the error of your ways.”