fandomhigh | Library [1.15]

"Invent-a-whatsit?" she asked, puzzled. "You're inventing a memory-thinggie? Neat."

Biting her lip, she carefully wrote down a (http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Psychology-Steven-J-Heine/dp/0393925730/ref=pd_sim_b_title_1) few (http://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Human-Memory-Cognitive-Psychology/dp/0863775454/ref=pd_sim_b_title_2) more (http://www.amazon.com/Your-Memory-Users-Alan-Baddeley/dp/1552979857/ref=pd_sim_b_title_1) options (http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-Memory/dp/0195182006/ref=pd_sim_b_title_2). "These might be helpful too. How can you build a memory?"

"It's a class on Mondays," he explained, "taught by Professor Ambrose. And I'm trying to invent, well... a backup for memories. One that would record them along with a person so that if they lost their memories, they could get them back again."

Her pen paused for a moment and she stared down at the paper. "What about for people who already lost their memories? Could your device find them again?"

"I was thinking of that," he admitted. "I mean, if they're just not in your head, maybe. They'd probably still be elsewhere on you, after all. Your hair, your skin, the things important to you. That's easy enough."

He didn't realize it wasn't easy for everyone. It's never really come up.

"But if they're all really really gone, I don't think so. I don't even know how you'd do that."

"Even after a long time?" Anemone didn't understand what Liir was talking about, but she listened intently. "How do you know if they're gone or if they've just wandered elsewhere?"

He blinked.

"You look."

He didn't, most of the time. He'd told the other children of things talking to him, and he'd dreamed dreams and he'd seen visions and he'd been told it was all nonsense, that he shouldn't yammer on, so he didn't say anything most of the time. And then he'd done his best not to listen at all, since it made him want to talk about it.

That was easier, too, less cluttered. The world made more sense when you didn't feel every murder on the street, the hunger in the stones of buildings.

Being the literal-minded person that she was, she raised her hands and looked at them, trying to see if there were any memories hiding under her skin.

"Oh. I don't see anything." Anemone rotated her hands slowly, still looking. "What do they look like?"

He shook his head.

"You don't--"

He breathed out.

"I haven't done it for a while," he admitted. "Looked. Asked."

They told me I was being silly.

"Do you have something important to you, something you've had with you a long time? It's easier to talk to things than people."

"Nothing from that long ago, no." Anemone lowered her hands and shook her head. "I've had Gulliver for a long time, but not that long, and he's a Gulliver and not a thing."

"Oh well, it was worth a try, right?"

Hearing his name, Gulliver perked up and purred affirmatively. Yes, he was Gulliver, and that was His Girl. Hi, Boy, Hi.

He quirked his head.

"Well, I could try with--"

He paused.

"You could probably find someone better at this than I am."

"No worries." Anemone tossed him a grin and picked up her pen again. "If it was important, I wouldn't have lost it in the first place."

"Books!" She nodded vigorously and slid the list over to him. "Shall we go in search of books and things? Have you been to the library before?"

He shook his head.

"I work at the bookshop, though. I know how to handle books."

He wanted to assure her he wouldn't damage them.

"The bookshop probably has nothing on the library," she joked, sweeping her arm in a wide circle. "Books are cataloged by the Dewey Decimal System, and the library itself is a semi-sentient living thing. Special Collections is only accessible if you have a note from the Librarian, and it IS a fully-sentient malicious section. You don't want to go in there."

"Oh, and watch your step. I've had issues with wee knights and an ostrich in here before."

Dot. Dot. Dot.

"All right."

When the weird piles, it makes it a lot easier to roll with it.

"What's the Dewey Decimal System?"

...knowing him, as it was an organizational system, he'd really really like it.

When the weird piles up, it's so much easier to handle. It just sort of settles into a pleasant numbness.

"It's a cataloging system," she explained, holding up the piece of paper. "Rather than group things by author or title or size or color, it's by subject. Psychology books are all grouped under the '100' section."

"See this number here?" She pointed at the string of numbers she had jotted down under one title. "153.12 OXF. So we go to the 150's, and just browse along the numbers until we find it. It's easy."

He really really liked it.

"That's... that's actually rather brilliant."

"I don't know why or how they made the system, but it works pretty well. You can just browse up and down the aisle, and find what you need!" Anemone ran her fingers lightly along the spines of the books as she walked. "I never owned more than a few books, so the idea of there being so many is still really strange."

"I've never owned any before I came here. I wasn't allowed to read anything important."

Library [1.15]

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