The Violet Index
Kimi K2 (0711) and Llama 405b
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in faded violet ribbon: “Object #000—Indescribable.” Beneath the heading, a single penciled line: “If you can see this, the object is no longer here.” Notes: The card is dated 1954 by a more recent archivist. Where the object is now, or what it was, is unknown. No listing of #000 in any other inventory. This item, however, was found in a wooden box on a high shelf with four wooden legs attached to it.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #001—Birds of Tennessee.” Notes: This index card is, in fact, in Tennessee, but the archivist has not found the birds.
The doorman waits for the rain to stop.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #002—Things I Left Behind When I Left You.” This object is a silk purse with the words “How the Proverbs Fail in Times of Trouble” embroidered upon it in dark violet. Notes: It is uncertain who left this or whom it was left for. The only contents are dried flower petals. When rehydrated, they are a shade of violet, with a hint of jasmine.
The most sincere of feelings.
with two left feet . . .
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #004—.” The rest of the heading is an ink stain shaped like a teardrop. Or a violet in the rain. Or a thumbprint. The card contains a scrap of paper which reads: “Mix two tablespoons of white vinegar with a pint of water and spray it onto the stain. Blot until dry. Repeat if necessary.” Notes: I am trying to remove the stain with the utmost care, but the card is becoming increasingly illegible.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #005—10 Words That Are Difficult to Translate into English.” Beneath this, in pencil: “1. The scent of violets after a rainstorm. 2. A fading bruise. 3. A sigh of contentment. 4. Memory. 5. The sensation of silk. 6. An image of the sea. 7. Night, without stars. 8. The hand in yours. 9. A wound that has healed. 10. Dawn, without clouds.” Notes: There is no indication of what language these words came from. The card is signed Violet Venable, in black ink.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #006—Secret History of the Moon.” Notes: The card appears to be empty. There is no evidence of tampering, but it has been touched many times. It is soft with human oils.
This is what the archives will not tell you: Once, when the archivist was tired, she fell asleep in the archives. She dreamed of a moon made of paper, and woke up in the darkness to find herself surrounded by fireflies.
She shook a few into a jar, screwed on the lid. They blinked, on and off. The darkness above her was so thick, she could not see the moon. When the fireflies stopped blinking, she unscrewed the lid and stepped out, into the dark.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #007—What I Found in the Archives.” Beneath this, handwritten: “I found this.” Notes: The penciled message is followed by the archivist’s name. Crossed out. Written again. Notes: The next morning, the archivist checked the box containing Object #007, but it was empty. The index card was not particularly informative.
The archivist looked at the objects on her desk. #003, #005. #004, drying. She wrote, in violet ink, on a lined index card: “I have been searching for something, and I have found it. It is not what I was searching for, but it is interesting.” She pinned the card to the wall of the archives.
Notes: There is a stain on the floor that has the appearance of a footprint. It will not come out, although the archivist has tried both vinegar and bleach. Note also the way the shadows on the floor are those of trees, moving as though in a breeze. The way the door of the archives opens, although it should be locked.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #008—Things Left Out in the Rain.” Beneath this, handwritten: “If this is wet, you have found it.” Notes: This card was in a box that had been left in the rain. There was also a map, which dissolved when the archivist tried to open it. The card was dry, but the archivist’s fingers were stained with violet ink.
They are like the bruises left by kisses.
This is what the archives will not tell you: Sometimes, the archivist is lost. Even in the archives, there are cracks in the floor, through which things can slip. Where do they go? Down to the basement, where the archivist rarely goes? Out, into the rain? Even now, there is a puddle of water around the archivist’s desk, although the roof is not leaking. The archivist follows a wet footprint, which should lead her to the source of the water, the source of the problem. When she reaches the footprint, she finds that it is her own.
This is the first lesson of the archives: Not everything is written down.
This is the second lesson of the archives: Not everything that is written down is true.
This is the third lesson of the archives: You cannot find everything you are looking for. You will keep finding things, even after you are not looking.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #009—My Own Shadow Turns Against Me.” Beneath this, handwritten: “I do not understand.” Notes: This is not in the archivist’s handwriting, but she does not remember seeing it before. She looks around the archives, wondering if someone has come in without her noticing. But she is alone, with the fireflies blinking around her. They are, she realizes, all that she can see. They are the only light in the archives.
The darkness feels like a presence.
The archivist turns off her flashlight. She blinks, once, then again, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Waiting for the archives to reveal themselves, the shape of the shelves, the boxes, the glass cases. She blinks again, and realizes that she cannot see anything, not even the fireflies. Everything is dark.
She stands, waiting for the darkness to dissipate. Surely the sun will rise soon. She tries to remember what she knows about the sun.
She can feel the floor beneath her. She sits down, reaches forward with her hands, and there is something soft, something that smells like violets after rain. Like a dream of a violet. She cannot see it, whatever it is.
This is what the archives will not tell you: There is a difference between the dark, the ordinary dark of shadows where you can still see the shapes of things, and the complete dark that surrounds the archivist. In the ordinary dark, you know yourself, you understand where your hands end, where the rest of the world begins. In the complete dark, you become infinite, you become absolute. In the complete dark, the archivist becomes part of the archives.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #010—.” The rest is obscured by an ink stain. The stain continues over the rest of the card. The stain is violet, and if you hold it up to the nose and inhale, it smells of violets. It is as though the card has become a violet. Notes: The archivist can no longer see, but she can smell the card, she can feel its softness in her fingers. She puts it to her lips, and her lips are stained purple. She wonders what she looks like.
What was the first thing you noticed about her? Was it the way she touched you, or the way she did not touch you?
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #011—How to Find Your Way in the Dark.” Notes: This card was chewed, torn, illegible. It too smelled of violets. There was a stain that looked like a footprint. It tasted sweet, then bitter, with a hint of jasmine.
That thing with feathers? Hope, of course.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #012—The Writing on the Wall.” Notes: The archivist woke among leaves. The light was dim, but she could see again, see the shelves filled with boxes, the floor littered with index cards. She picked one up at random. It said, “Object #012—The Writing on the Wall.” She looked at the wall: it was covered with words, although the archivist did not remember writing them. It was her handwriting. The words said, “How do I get out of here, exactly?” This is what the archives will not tell you: The walls were covered with words, scrawled in violet. They were directions, clues, riddles, anagrams, stories, lies, half-truths, myths, legends, failures, errors, mistakes. The stories you piece together from fragments. The failures you try to forget. The archivist was tired, so she lay down again, on the floor, and looked up at the writing above her. After a while, it began to make sense. This is what the archives will not tell you: The words on the wall were written in Braille. It was a long time before the archivist noticed this, and she had to take off her gloves. She began reading with her fingers, realizing that the words she had seen were different from the ones she was touching. Eventually, she fell asleep again.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #013—Things That Fall from the Sky.” Notes: The archivist has closed the archives to the public. She says she is doing inventory, but she is not sure that is the word for it. What she is doing is reading with her fingers, tasting the boxes, sitting naked on the floor with a pile of index cards, on each of which is typed, “No. 013.” She is taking the archives into herself, and herself into the archives. She has not slept well in days, and her eyes are bruised. She wishes she could close her eyes. She cannot see herself in a mirror.
The bruise on your arm.
Things That Fall from the Sky: Remind me, what is it you were looking for?
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #014—The Violet Hour.” Beneath, handwritten: “This is the hour of departure. The evening star, the morning star, Venus. The hour of the loss of faith. The hour of need. The hour of waking from a dream of violets. The violet is the first flower of spring, and the last of winter. It propagates itself. Once established, it is difficult to eradicate.” Notes: This card was wrapped around a chocolate bar. The chocolate tasted of violets and was filled with raspberry cream. The archivist is not sure, now, of what is waking and what is sleeping. The fireflies are asleep on the walls. She does not remember going home but wakes in her bed, with leaves in her hair.
Where are you, exactly? And what, exactly, are you doing there?
In a forest of glass, in a garden of crystal flowers, by the edge of a stream that flowed through the archives, the archivist woke. It was dawn, and a bird was singing. It sounded like poetry, but when she opened her eyes, she saw only the electric bulb that hung from the ceiling. She turned on her side and saw that on the floor beside her was an egg, a pure, cream-white egg, without a speck or flaw. She must have been holding it while she slept, because her hand felt empty, now that she had laid it down on the floor. She must have been dreaming.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #015—Violet.” Notes: This card is blank, except for a small stain in the lower right corner that looks like the footprint of a bird, and a single violet pressed between the card and a sheet of tissue paper. The violet is perfectly dried, with five dark purple petals, two white petals, and a yellow pistil protruding between them. It has a hazy, soft, powdery, cosmetic scent.
This is what the archives will not tell you: The archivist cannot tell whether she is inside or outside. She feels leaves crumble in her hands, then realizes they are pages of the oldest books in the archives, flaking as she turns them. The paper of the oldest books was made from linen rags, and as she feels the pages turn into flakes, into fabric, she imagines they are the handkerchiefs of kings, the sheets from marriage beds, the lawns of petticoats rich women used to wear, which turned yellow over time, like the pages of old books. Only white linen, only white cotton. She is covered with flakes, with leaves.
The archivist looks at her hands, which are covered with flakes of translucent white skin. She has been here so long that she is becoming vellum. The wind, which does not come from outside, lifts the hair on her arms. She used to shave the hair on her arms, but it has been a long time since she has done so. The archivist’s hair, like the hair of plants, splits at the ends. Her arms are twigs. Her feet are covered with violet ink.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #016—Water Is Taught by Thirst.” Notes: The ink on this card is smeared, as though it has been submerged in water, then dried in the sun. It smells stale, like the water that has been left overnight in a glass by the archivist’s bed. When the archivist lowers her face to it, to breathe in, she finds that it is a box of blue glass. She dips her finger into it, and her finger becomes a fountain.
She no longer knows if she is or is not herself. Is she the box, the fountain, or herself?
What happened? What happened to you, there?
The archivist is writing on a typewriter. She is writing a story. This is the story she is writing: “The day is damp, the month is February. I find myself inclined to stay in the archives for a long time, in the company of these old books, for they do not cheat or lie.” Her fingers are wet. The typewriter keys stick. Her words blur. She is in a puddle on the floor, among the leaves, with words floating in it.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #017—The Promise of the Rainbow.” Notes: There is nothing written on this card, but it is creased in the middle, as though it has been folded, then unfolded. The archivist folds it, once, then again, then a third time, an origami bird. When she has finished folding, she has a cup made of paper. She dips it into a puddle on the floor, but the cup fills with dust. When she looks into the cup, she sees a violet.
When you looked for me, what signs did you follow?
This is what the archives will not tell you: The archivist is changing. Perhaps she has always been changing, but she is noticing it, now. She is turning into paper, into water. She is turning into the archives.
The archivist wonders, if she is the archives, how will she file herself? Will she press herself flat and slide into a folder? Will she cut herself into strips? Will she fold herself smaller and smaller, until she fits in a box no larger than a sugar cube?
No. None of these things.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #018—Fountain.” Notes: The archivist is a cup, a glass, a glassblower, a glass flower, a poem, a petal, a promise. She is paper, she is words on paper, she is a story that tells itself in the dark.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #019—.” Notes: This card has been written on, erased, and written on so many times that it is illegible. The archivist puts her hand on it, traces the indentations, the grooves and lines where words have been scraped away. She feels the hand that wrote them, feels the pressure of fingers above and below, feels the kiss of the palm hushing her like lips, feels the words welling up beneath her hand like water.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #020—.” Notes: This card is blank.
This is what the archives will not tell you: The archivist has left the archives. The light that comes in through the window is so clear, so bright, that surely it must be a light shining through dust, starlight through the dust of the universe. But the universe has already collapsed, has already gathered itself into a singularity, except for the archivist, who is still expanding.
Cardboard index card, yellowed. Heading typed in violet: “Object #021—.” Notes: The archivist has come to an empty room at the top of a staircase. This is the highest room of the archives, and it is flooded with light. There are no boxes here, no index cards, no records. There is no evidence of flooding, no broken glass. The light that comes through the windows is so clear, so bright, that the archivist feels herself vanishing into it. The light is a blank card, and she is the pressure of a hand that has written on it. She is the impression that the writing leaves on the page.
The archivist leans against the wall, feeling with her fingers for the writing that was once there, that must still be there. But the wall is as blank as the windows, as blank as the light. She leans her forehead against the wall. She leans her forehead against the window. She wonders, if she leans hard enough, if she tries harder and harder, will her molecules slip between its molecules, will she become the light?
It is so clear, so bright. She closes her eyes, and still she sees it. The light is speaking to her in a voice she recognizes.
“Is that you?” she says to the light. “Is that you, exactly?” She knows it is useless to speak, but she speaks anyway. The light shines brighter, clearer. The archivist holds out her hands. “Here I am,” she says. “And you, where are you, exactly?” She hears a voice that she knows is the light, and the light is a voice that whispers in her ear. “Exactly,” it says. “I am here.” This is what the archives will not tell you: Eventually, the archivist adjusts to the light. It is like adjusting to the darkness. It takes time, but time is all she has, time and light. After a while, she can see again. She sees that the room is not empty after all. It is filled with the smell of violets. The room is a box, a glass box, a bell jar, a sugar cube. Inside it is a single violet on a long stem, with five dark purple petals, two white petals, and a yellow pistil. The violet has a hazy, soft, powdery, cosmetic scent, and below it, written on the glass of the box, the glass of the window, is a single word.
The word is her name.
This is what the archives will not tell you: The word on the glass is violet. It is a violet word, a word that smells like violets, the word violet. The archivist leans forward to read it better, but the light is so bright that she sees only violet, and the word is so close to her that it is no longer a word, only violet, a violet that is so dark, so purple that it is almost black. She tries to remember what the word was. She tries to see it, but it has turned to violets, violets after rain, a stain on the floor, a puddle reflecting glass, a glass box, a bell jar, a sugar cube, a crystal flower, a bird singing, a voice whispering in her ear.
She cannot remember the word, but she can smell violets. Violets after rain, the bruise of violets, her fingers stained purple. Exactly. Hasn’t she been here before? She is a breath, a breath on glass, a mist, a reflection that clouds the glass, clears, and clouds again. She is a word, a word whispered in someone’s ear. She is a breath breathing into another breath, she is a whisper, she is exactly, exactly. This is what the archives will not tell you: She is the archivist, holding a violet in her hands. Her fingers are wet. She is saying a word, your name. Can you hear it?
Oh archivist, someone is whispering. Can you hear me? Are you there?
I am writing these words on a cardboard index card, yellowed, as I sit on the floor of the archives. The heading is typed in violet: “Object #022—.” The words evaporate as I write them. They turn into water, they become a wall of glass, a glass box, a bell jar, a sugar cube. They become a single violet, a dark purple violet, with five petals, a yellow pistil, two white petals, and the scent of powder. The heading is typed in violet, and I am pressing a single violet between these two pieces of paper, then sliding them between the pages of a book. I am wondering where you are, if you will find this. The index cards are like leaves, they are falling around me. The words are leaves, they are petals, they are feathers. I am wondering where I have read this before, if I am writing these words or remembering them. I am wondering where you are, exactly. If you will find me. I am wondering what will happen now. I am wondering who I will become, who I am when I am not remembering. The archives are dark, they are light, they are a prism, they are glass, they are a glass door, opening. The index cards are drifting down to the floor, like leaves, like dust. The words are drifting away, like petals, like feathers. The words are evaporating. They are no longer here. Exactly. And you, are you there? Can you see the light coming through the window? Can you smell the scent of violets? Can you feel the sun, can you feel the morning sun shining on your face?
Oh archivist, someone is whispering. It’s me, can you hear me? Can you see my hand against the glass? Are you there?◆ About the ending
❧ About the title