Phineus was a good chap, he went to work on time, did his job, was courteous to the staff and customers in the Archives Department, though there wasn’t much opportunity for social interaction. That’s the way Phin liked it, quiet, solitary, buried in endless rows of books and papers. It was here that Phin felt utterly at ease. Here in the stacks, his mind could wander free, lost in one of a myriad of books on any number of fascinating topics.
His favorite books were those documenting the exploits of his heroes, men like Hillary who braved the peaks of Everest, or Alexander spreading the realm of his Empire into the deepest jungles of India. Even fables that were not true, could not be true, stories like Lost Horizon or The Man Who Would Be King raised his blood and fixed him riveted to the page. Scarcely would he notice the time fly past until the tapping of the janitor’s steel heels clicked across the linoleum, signaling the end of the swing shift. He would just make it back to the checkout desk in time to meet his morning replacement.
On those cold dark mornings when he would walk back to his tiny flat in the city he would ruminate on those stories he had read during his eight hours he had spent plotting diabolical revenge with Edmund Dante, or crossing swords with Pegleg Pete, always secretly fearing that one day, his luck would change and his dream job would disappear, thrusting him back into the awkward world of proper librarianism. It was by mere chance that a benefactor had given him the position in the archive room on recommendation by his Aunt June.
June had been like a mother to him, though definitely not related. She had taken a fancy to him during his time in the orphanage. In her waning years, she took him under her wing, left the nunnery and raised him as her own. Perhaps it was love, maybe pity that had sealed their deep connection. Phin had always been a sickly child, a mute, dumped on the orphanage steps when he was but a baby. Sister June, always religious, had taken her inability to sire children as a direct sign from the almighty himself that she was destined to serve God.
Sadly, though deep their bond, June had passed away just months after securing Phin a job where he would not be misunderstood or ridiculed by the normal world. Phin’s one passion was reading. It was only here that he felt a part of the outside world, without having his cognitive affliction thrust in his face. His small flat that June had helped him set up was stacked from floor to ceiling with books that he had read. Every day after his shift ended he would silently eat his dinner and fall asleep with a book in his lap, completely contented.
Though June’s passing had left Phin devastated, he was nonetheless self-reliant in his adulthood and rarely ran into any situation that threatened the delicate homeostasis of solitary life. His only uncomfortable interactions with people typically coming during his passage to and from work. During these rare occasions he would simply shrug and act stupid, usually sending the party to pose their question to someone else on the street, without forcing him to delve into the specifics of his unique physiology.
Phin fell asleep the way he normally did, book in hand, this time The Metamorphasis across his lap, and woke in time to comb his disheveled hair and wash his face for work. He stepped off his stoop and braved the onslaught of returning rush hour foot traffic between him and the Museum Archives.
His brow was heavily furrowed this day, being deep in consternation digesting the dark themes of the previous night’s tale. Phin did not usually indulge in psychological, introspective fiction because it brought him too close to the plight of his own struggle, but Kafka’s book was referenced in another story and he felt compelled to explore.
Whilst deep in thought, he felt a hand grip his arm above elbow and he turned to face an elderly woman who looked up at him with a kind face. What came out of her mouth was decidedly unneighborly in tone and outright unnerving:
“Excuse me, Sir!”
Phin was stunned for a split second. Normally he simply shrugged, but the tone of this woman’s voice sounded determined in resolving some transgression he had committed. Phin thought hard for a moment but was certain he had not done anything to offend the woman, so simply gestured in confusion and turned to continue on his way.
She called after him, now louder and more insistent, “Excuse me, Sir!”
Phin turned to face her unrelenting face, suddenly covered in sweat over this unexpected reaction. She stared at him seeming to bore through him with those persistent eyes, but finally spun and moved on, leaving him befuddled.
He stood for a moment on the street, people bumping into him, but eventually turned to continue on his way…but was stopped by a tall, imposing man this time, who confronted with the exact same greeting…in the same intonation.
“Excuse me, Sir!”
Phin froze, looked at the man with complete confusion, and then forced himself to move past, the man looking after him.
Phin tried to keep his eyes fixed to sidewalk, avoiding people as best he could but he could hear them all mumbling, uttering, even shouting at times—
“Excuse me, Sir!”
It became a cacophony of overwhelming sound. He was completely consumed with attempting to puzzle out why he was suddenly getting this universal attention by everyone on the street. He examined himself, but he was fully clothed, no embarrassing aspect of his appearance that he could ascertain.
He started to run.
People called after him.
“Sir?”
“SIR?!”
“SIR!!!”
He reached the steps of the museum and vaulted them three at a time, flinging the main door open and barging past the museum patrons and security guard, now strangely all fixated on his passage, all shouting the same mantra after him.
“SIR!”
Phin hit the elevator bank and found it thankfully deserted. He reveled in the brief reprieve, trying to puzzle out what was happening. All those people he had encountered, all the same word, the same inflection, it was uncanny.
“Sir?”
He spun and met the eyes of his boss looking at him with a look of concern, a slight hint of fear. Just then the elevator car dinged its arrival. Phin waved a hand at the man in an attempt at a casual greeting, jumped on the car, and frantically punched the `Close Door` symbol, thankfully getting the desired result just as his boss was leaning in to look at him.
The elevator car was quiet, aside from the expected piped in muzac. He breathed a sigh of relief, but it caught in his throat. Something was different. There, a vocal track lightly underlay the instrumental. It was one word, over and over, syncopated with the lackadaisical beat.
“sir…sir…sir…”
The elevator chimed its arrival at the basement archive floor. Phin leaped from the car staring after it as it repeated its slow croon until the doors sealed shut, permanently shrouding the floor in welcome silence.
He slowly examined his familiar surroundings. All was as it should be. The day shift was long gone as expected. Phin’s punctuality and responsibility was so reliable, one could set their watch by it. Thus he had a standing arrangement with the man who held the shift before him that never required them to speak to each other, and that’s the way he liked it.
For a moment or two, Phin was like a scared animal, waiting for the elevator to chime the arrival of another human being’s presence to further confuse him with that haunting word. But none came.
Maybe he would simply find a deserted corner and sleep down in the archives tonight. He could stay in the basement archives forever, never again having to engage another human in verbal contact.
Yes, that sounded perfectly reasonable. Lost in his books and stories, he would be completely at peace with the one thing that gave him eternal solace.
He placed his bag down on the checkout desk, breathing deep the ancient scent of old books. Phin walked down the historical fiction aisle, letting his hand lovingly trace the fabric spines of the all too familiar books perfectly aligned in graceful harmony. He stopped at “A Stillness at Appomatttox” and drew the book out, cradling it in his hands.
He read:
“1. A Boy Named Martin
Everybody agreed that the Washington’s Birthday ball was the most brilliant event of the winter. Unlike most social functions in the army by the SIR—“
Phin stopped and reeled back. He reread the line:
“Unlike most social SIR.”
He dropped the book to the floor, drew another right next to it. Read from the Miracle at Philadelphia:
“Over Philadelphia the air lay hot and humid; old people said it was SIR SIR SIR.”
Phin dropped this book and drew another and another. The Killer Angels, Battle Cry Freedom, all the same.
“SIR SIR SIR SIR”
Phin scrabbled out of historical fiction now grabbing a book at random from whatever aisle he found himself in. Every book was scribed the same. The same word over and over.
“SIR.”
He grasped a shelf of books in desperation, his world spinning. The books fell toward him, then the shelf, then the whole row, crushing him, suffocating him, burying him in books.
He gasped in crushing panic, attempted to call out, but no sound emerged.
Eight hours passed.
The sun rose.
The clicking of the janitor’s heels echoed through the archive library racks. The janitor reached the collapsed row of books and found Phineous’s lifeless face emerging from underneath.
He posed one question:
“Sir?”
But there was no answer.
