In Lily’s Garden.

The Librarian of the Magical Library

The countless disappearing books from the horizontal city were vanishing completely from each city. The transparent page traced the ink remnants of the vanished books, and the woman began capturing those fading traces into her pen before they could disappear entirely, creating a new book.

‘They shouldn’t disappear… I need to capture them before they’re gone, but they keep vanishing. Now, even in this moment of anguish, and in the next…’

She named this transparent page the “Magic Page” and began transferring the lingering ink onto her pen and onto paper, constructing the book’s table of contents. After designing the book’s cover, she placed the still-empty volumes in the library, awaiting the rightful owner of each. Hoping the book’s owner would come to find her, she decided to become the librarian of the magical library until they did. With anticipation, she named the library, titled the publishing house, tried calling herself by her new librarian alias, and began titling the books to be written.

Sitting on a quiet afternoon café terrace, she sketched the cityscapes where the books lay dormant, looking up names of these cities, in a manner reminiscent of Christine. Had she always known about the translator’s existence? On the library’s first page, she sketched Christine’s daily life, and, recently convinced of the translator’s presence just like Christine’s, she opened the pages, following the translator’s shadow. As two ghosts passed across the spread pages, leaving trails of ink, she folded each page into a book and submitted it to the library, waiting for a label to be assigned.

“The books you created, the words you wrote, the city of books that is you.”

‘The books I created, the words I wrote, the city of books that is me.’

The woman’s transparent page was filling the vertical city with the books that had disappeared from the horizontal city, replacing the vacant spaces. The gray doll, sorting and shelving the books on the shelves in Eve’s study in the ghost city, mirrored her. She remembered how, after escaping the ghost city, books began falling in the vertical city while disappearing from the horizontal city. She remembered the gray doll fleeing after stealing books from both cities. I remember everything.

So don’t worry. All of your records are preserved on the transparent page. I remember you, even from long ago, before you began writing the story of my university. This writing is a record from a long time ago, a memory you left on a transparent page as a child. The shadow of the transparent page follows you like a ghost’s shadow, confusing you, blurring the lines between ghost, shadow, and page. But it was you who finally separated the three overlapping pages. There is a higher space in this university. I know the writers who live here. two translators on the transparent page, Eve’s ghost IEU, and Christine Eve’s shadow-writer, Ariel.

Welcome, for coming to meet the writers. Welcome.

Congratulations on arriving at my university!

I’ve waited a long time for this.

We’re replacing my university’s books with those from the horizontal city. Once more, welcome to admission! Which university do you wish to enter? The ghost university where you can read every application? The translator’s university, where everything is recorded? The attic university of Lily’s, or Christine Eve’s university with the red doll in the vertical city?

Choose.

I’m cheering for you.

This is a record from about a year ago, on a day when one of the universities sent you an invitation.