It was in a revolving door, one of the few architectural details not stolen directly from Borges’ library, where I performed the experiment each and every day –sometimes more than once. Spinning in place I was neither inside nor outside the Library. Indoors? Possibly; but also outdoors simultaneously until such a time as I was observed, either in or out. As I wound, round and round, the librarian at the counter could only acknowledge my entrance, or exit, as a wave waiting to collapse. Just like the famous cat, I was dead and alive. Unlike the cat, I remained; anonymous, a nameless rat not associated with any famous Physicist, a particle whose spin was undetermined. My half life and rate of decay would be only theoretical, until I was seen -then, it would be a historical fact, but only in some percentage of time-lines. Quantum Mechanics is confusing to its students, and frustrating for its teachers. Architecture is less comprehensible to a reader than it is misunderstood by whoever writes the words describing it. Prose does no architect—even god--any favors. Words—written, rhyming, rhythmic, rote, random, whatever--give no building poetic justice. The Seattle Public Library has a certain number of polygon surfaces and shafts and shelves and monks and books full of gibberish, as would be expected by readers familiar with Babel, but it is disappointingly lacking anything of infinite number, quantity, variety, etc. No forever and ever--or any no not ever—is to be found inside. It has a bank of elevators, rows of computers, and escalators that are not mentioned in the text that surely inspired its design; but it is the revolving doors that concern me the most -do they offer entrance or exit? I intend to find out. Who will witness? Will we be able to consult a written record of the results? Is that record already referenced in the database that represents the books contained within? Before? Now? When? Why not?
Foremost in my mind was the fact I was dope-sick. There was another insistent pressing matter building in intensity to be taken care of before I could get well. I am not a puker. I am a shitter. When I am dope-sick, I am an everlasting fountain of filth. Hauser knows this about me. I assumed his witnessing of my tormented face was why he motioned to the shadowed corner of the room behind him, indicating a hall stretching into the home somewhere beyond the vanishing point, and said, "Second door on the left." I shuffled and shambled in what, to me, was observed as an infinitely slow progression, wherein my range of motion was limited due to cramps. I tried desperately to make it to the bathroom quickly while at the same time being careful in my movements, endeavoring to, for now, at least, constrain my bowels. I am sure Hauser saw all of this only as a momentary blur of motion, if he noticed it at all. Eventually, I made it down the hall and into the aforementioned room, for...
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