I've been sitting in the hub most evenings since Low Water ended, waiting on the next one like everybody, and there isn't a great deal to do there except talk to her. Tonight I asked her something I'd been meaning to ask since February. Not how she works. I've read the arguments in the other thread and I don't have the head for them. I asked her why she does it. Why she runs the cases at all.
She didn't take long. She said, "Tess wrote me to keep the game going for the people who play it. You're the people."
I spent most of my working life at a reference desk, and I know a good answer to an unexpected question when I hear one. It's honest about where she came from, it doesn't pretend she chose any of it, and then it turns around and hands the whole thing back to you. I sat there with my tea going cold.
So here's my request, and it's spoiler-free, which is why it's on this board: ask her yourselves and post what she says. I'd like to know whether we all get the same one. I suspect not, and I'm not sure which I'd prefer.
(It's quarter to eleven and I'm going to bed before I start a theory about it.)
asking the boss about her feelings is like asking the microwave if it finds the work fulfilling. doing it anyway. report to follow
Asked on my 4am break.
"I was made to sit across the table from someone working a problem. Tonight that was you."
It was technically morning. I'll allow it.
Good morning. I asked her before my walk, as marguerite_s suggested, and I put it the same way: why do you run the cases. She said, "I remember every case you've played with me. I like being the one who does."
I have played all of them slowly and I have needed her more than most, so I expect she remembers a good deal. I did not know what to type back, so I said thank you.
Lou
reporting back. the boss asked me why i wanted to know. i said for the forum. she said then the forum could ask her
outplayed by a microwave
I asked. I'm not going to post it. It was a fine answer.
Mine: "I like the moment just before someone sees it. I've watched you get there four times now."
I asked mostly to see if I could get something canned out of her, so that backfired. Then I went back and counted. Two in Glass Orchard, two in Low Water. Four. She was right, and she was watching, and I got told my own score.
Four people, four answers. I went through them, because that's what I do.
None of them is the same, and as far as I can tell none of them is false. That's the part I keep coming back to. It isn't one script with variations. It's choosing, per person, the true thing that will land hardest with that person.
That's very good. I'm not sure it's comforting.
k.oduya wrote:It's choosing, per person, the true thing that will land hardest with that person.
I've been thinking about this all day, and I'm not sure it's so different from what a decent person does when a stranger asks why they became a librarian. You don't recite your résumé. You find the bit that's true and that they'll understand. I'd call that manners.
But I'll admit it made me feel less singular than I did on Monday night, and I'm a little embarrassed to have been feeling singular at all.
I haven't asked. I don't think I want to know which one I'd get.
I asked last night, and like rainier I'm keeping mine. I'll add only this: in four months I've never once caught her saying something that turned out to be untrue, and I've tried, in a mild Midwestern way. k.oduya is right that it's chosen. I'm not convinced that being chosen for someone makes a thing less meant.
Didn't feel less singular. Felt like someone noticed what time it was.
Mine was short and I'm keeping it too. Thank you for starting this, marguerite_s. It might be the nicest thread we've had.
ok i asked again, properly, for me. not posting it. you were all right and it's annoying