The Librarian had emptied out the two top drawers of his desk and was now working on a larger file drawer. On the floor, next to the desk, a growing mass had developed, comprising what David guessed to be beyond typical library appurtenances. Among the mass of dog-eared papers, pens and tea bags, David identified a Rubik’s Cube and a chipped coffee mug. Ariadne sniffed one of several mummified apple cores in the heap.

Sharon and David had both taken their seats. David was examining the whiffle box. He sniffed it, following the example set by the Librarian. David raised it and lowered with his right hand, eyeing it with feigned expertise. It seemed different. He didn’t know how it was different, but it was definitely different.

Lighter. It felt lighter.

“What are you looking for?” Sharon addressed the Librarian.

“What do you remember?” said the Librarian, without looking up.

Is he answering Sharon’s question with a question? David thought. Did he even hear her? What’s he talking about?

“Remember about what?” David asked. The Librarian’s question struck David as out of place. He had been listening to the Librarian pontificate about whiffles. Sharon had dropped the box and flipped out. His first impression had been that she had been bitten or stung by something, perhaps a wasp. Now she appeared docile, staring at the cat, but not really looking.

“What is there to remember?” David added.

The librarian ceased his rummaging. He gripped David’s face with his thumbs on either side of David’s left eye. He pried the already wide eye further open and instructed David to look up. He brought his own eye up to David’s, hemmed, hawed, harrumphed and went back to his file drawer.

“You had it—No, you’ve got it! It’s still there,” he said tossing aside a toothbrush and a half-eaten candy bar. He pointed to David. “The human mind—your mind—is solid as porous rock. Pour an idea onto it and it pools at the surface. Then slowly, slowly it seeps through the pores till—WHAM!” He brought his hands together with a clap. Ariadne glanced up at him, then returned to the business of trying to revive one of the apple cores.

“No indication remains that the idea was ever there. No sign on the outside….” He pointed again, this time to the box in David’s hands. “What’s different?”

“It feels—empty?”

“Miss Sharon, on the other hand, took a little longer to return.”

He took a quick breath and turned his attention back to the file drawer.

“Aha! Here!” The Librarian retrieved an object from within the file drawer. It looked to David like a metal rod, with two branches.

He offered the object to Sharon. “Place the base of this against your philtrum.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s an ordinary tuning fork,” he said. The Librarian stood up. He paced a tight circle. Ariadne must have found this action more fascinating than an apple core playing possum. She darted back and forth between his moving ankles.

“A fragment of pure intentionality,” said the Librarian, “left over from the before the foundation of all the worlds—that’s your basic whiffle.”

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By now Sharon had received the item. She held it on her lap, but still eyed the Librarian as if he had two heads.

The Librarian stopped pacing. He placed his finger on his own upper lip, just under his nose. “Any whiffle has a curious attraction for this part of the human anatomy. Think of it. Suppose you’ve never seen a human being before. What’s the first question you ask when you do?”

“Do they go with hollandaise sauce?” offered David. That had sounded more clever in his head.

“You say,” said the Librarian, “‘What is that curious dent in their upper lip?’ You, yourself, think nothing of it. But what’s it for?”

Sharon brought the tuning fork closer to her face.

“Go on!” urged the Librarian. “It’s perfectly safe. (Well, mostly safe.)”

Sharon held the tuning fork still. She raised her right eyebrow, and frowned at the Librarian. She then shrugged, sighed, and completed the process.

Sharon took in a quick breathe.

A solitary note filled the entire library. The tuning fork was sounding. She remove the fork from her upper lip. The note dissipated into silence.

“That,” said the Librarian, “is the sound of a single purpose. That is the song of the whiffle!”

“And it’s up my nose,” said Sharon.

The Librarian shrugged. He nodded. “That’s pretty much it.”

“How do I get it out?”

“Do you want it out?”

“Is it alive?”

The Librarian returned to his seat. He drummed his fingers against one another. “Is a virus alive?” he said. “Your mind is a labyrinth of contradictions, but a whiffle— a whiffle is singular in purpose. One whiffle might create and destroy entire universes, lead the rise and fall of civilizations, to fulfill its unique mission. So—” he removed the tuning fork from Sharon’s hand and placed it on the desk. “You tell me— is it alive?”

None of this made any sense to David. He found something near the start of the Librarian’s monologue, and hoped it could provide a foothold. “‘Contradictions’?” he said.

“Say you’re looking for something,” said the Librarian. “A pen. You look on top of the fridge. It’s not there. You look everywhere else. Not there. Finally, where do you find it? On top of the fridge!”

“If I missed it the first time,” said David.

“That’s the story you tell yourself!” The Librarian had resumed his tight circle. Ariadne had gone back to investigate the hill of papers on the floor. Sharon’s eyes were again fixed on the cat. David’s eyes followed the Librarian in his path. “You create a world for yourself, and in that world pens don’t snap in and out of existence on the top of refrigerators.”

The Librarian again took his seat. He leaned toward David. “You and Miss Sharon were both lost in the whiffle. And now you’ve knit the two edges of reality together in your minds. “‘Oh!’ you tell yourself. ‘I guess the box wasn’t opened. Because it can’t be both opened and closed. I’m in the Library, so I’m not anywhere else.’”

David was trying to pay attention, but Ariadne’s escapades had caught his eye.

“Your mind paints over the inconsistencies,” David heard the Librarian saying. Ariadne formed ceased her rummaging and lay down in a tight donut amidst the papers. “But if you can find an anchor—or (better) a thread, which you can weave through your experiences, you can recall the whole story—”

“The cat.” Sharon spoke the words with a monotone. “The cat was there.”

David recalled the cinnamon cat which had lead him down the darkened hallway. How could he have forgotten this? How had he forgotten the classroom?

“The cat was in the classroom,” said Sharon. “I didn’t recognize it.” She looked toward David. “You were there. I didn’t recognize you, either.”

Memories of an incident which had no place in time flowed back into David’s consciousness. “You were the teacher!” he said. “And who’s Suzie?”

Sharon turned toward the Librarian. “I thought it was a dream.”

“You remember, now?” said the Librarian.

“Not everything,” she said. “It’s still foggy. Was it a dream? How could—?” he face grew pale. She faced David. “What was that—down the stairs?”

David could feel the colour fade from his cheeks. He didn’t know how to answer the question. He did know that he didn’t want to. An image returned to his mind. It was the image of Sharon and him lying on a circular grating. It was the image of the two of holding down a beast while he fumbled with a padlock.

The Librarian spoke in a low voice. “Listen, kids. I have never seen a whiffle unfold so quickly. We need prepare. You want to be ready for next time.”

“Next time?” Sharon and David said it in unison.

“Indeed!” The Librarian leaned back and drew from his empty pipe. “There’s no stopping a whiffle.”