“Choose fourteen,” the intake officer had said, the first and only time they had met.
“Which committees will I be consulting? And, in terms of language—”
“You devise the criteria, make the selection, and choose the format. What is essential? Why?” The officer had placed a hand on a closed file, fixing her with an intense look, a strange warning in it. “Do not answer these questions overtly. Your choices will speak for themselves. The workroom in your living quarters will contain access to all that you require in order to do this. You will consult no one. You will explain your purpose to no one before, during, or after. Flouting these imperatives would have dire repercussions. That is all.”
The officer had picked up and held the file aloft—an offering.
“Welcome to The Underground.”
She had taken it.
—————————
They’d all been handpicked for the project, which had been planned out for years in advance, a carefully-wound timepiece with human beings for gears. Each of them turned just-this-way at just-that-time knowing just-this-much in their self contained bunker of a facility, shut off from the outside world—from each other too. They’d all been debriefed individually and then sworn to secrecy about their part in the project. Then, contracts signed, they’d been ferried, matter-of-fact, into The Underground.
Her task had taken place almost entirely in her head while twisting and turning in her desk chair, pacing the width and breadth of her small workroom – wandering the rest of her private living quarters when she needed more space to think. Over the course of each day, Finn focused her energy on contemplating the arbitrary number she had been given, the nebulous request attached to it, and an incessant, echoing refrain of how—why?
How do you choose just fourteen pieces of literature to archive?
That was the work, the question she had been brought on to answer, and in the course of her appointment, she’d come to the resounding conclusion that there was no absolute. There was no committee, no individual, who could come up with a selection that would have universal appeal. And more to the point: that would have erased its particularity, its perfect wholeness having no space for the reader to curl up in, no hand-holds with which to grasp. No eureka in the margins. No margins.
Every person was a prism, decoding the human experience in a slightly different way.
She knew several languages, could read in them—so which languages did she choose? The format was hers to choose as well, so could she thread translations together? And what of translations? Were they just as valid as the originals? Was it possible for a translation to hold more potency than its source material, like spring water filtered down through a mountainside?
Here is my part of the grand venn diagram, she had thought to herself, looking over her selection one last time. Here is one of many possible maps for the human spirit. These are the mental roads I travelled, the places I crossed paths with strangers and found synchronicity.
All of these should be preserved in writing, except this one—this one must be spoken, and so I have recorded it in my own voice. On a page, it doesn’t hold the same power, and I don’t know why.
These words did not move my father. They did not make my sister weep. My neighbour never once took them into consideration. But I did, and my world shifted.
Committees will tell you to save that-other-book from the incinerator, but I would let one hundred copies fall into the fire to save one copy of this.
I can’t explain why.
As instructed, she had kept her thoughts to herself.
Had eventually submitted her work, a simple file containing fourteen items: no more, no less.
And in return, rather than a thankyou, or further instructions, or any sort of feedback at all, a lightbulb of middling size had lit up over her door in green, and she’d heard the snick of the lock disengaging.
Finn had been brought into the facility flanked by a pair of silent officials, led straight through the main doors down a nondescript hall, and then motioned into her living quarters before being shut inside. Meals had been provided three times a day through a two-way compartment, everything else she could possibly have needed inside the suite itself. Were it not for all the silence and restriction, she might have thought she were simply on holiday at a rather eccentric resort.
Which perhaps explained her relative lack of distress at having been locked in.
And now that restriction, at least, was gone.
Leaving her free to wander into the next level of her mysterious placement into The Underground, into the unknown.
.
August 18, 2021.
The 72nd episode of The Side B Anthology podcast.
An original short story by Janique EA Bruneau (Jea).
This standalone short story is part of the jumble that has been stowed haphazardly in The Glove Compartment sub-anthology, as it doesn’t yet fit with another narrative.
If you feel so inclined, I would gladly welcome a comment below, or a tip.