Liber Neptuni - Chapter 64

Verses

Verse 39

I catalogue the drowned city because nobody else remembers the alphabet used by its statues.

Verse 40

Shelf A contains crowns recovered from rulers who believed elevation was protection.

Verse 41

Shelf B contains children's toys, which accuse history more efficiently than crowns.

Verse 42

The library doors open inward though the sea presses from every side.

Verse 43

Our oldest tablet says the city was built where Neptune promised never to rise.

Verse 44

Our second-oldest tablet is a lawsuit concerning the first.

Verse 45

Every midnight a school of silver fish swims through the philosophy section and rearranges causality.

Verse 46

I objected once. The fish cited precedent.

Verse 47

A marble cat sits above the archive entrance with one paw missing and both eyes intact.

Verse 48

Divers say its eyes follow them. I tell them all archivists do this.

Verse 49

We have records of twelve apocalypses, nine of which were later reclassified as municipal failures.

Verse 50

The royal temple lies beneath three meters of silt and one thousand years of embarrassment.

Verse 51

Its god is still accepting offerings, though nobody remembers what department he governs.

Verse 52

Sometimes bubbles rise from the sealed vault and spell names in languages not yet invented.

Verse 53

I record them in pencil. Eternity has poor revision control.

Verse 54

When the city finally surfaces, I suspect tourists will complain that the cafés are closed.

Verse 55

Until then, the archive remains open by appointment to the dead, the lost, and properly credentialed jinn.