The Wandering Library: A series

Part 18: On Yodelling and the Accidental Inhalation of Waterfowl

(I painted this in Procreate using the oil paint brush - Chaiga T. Cheska)
~~~

Being an account of the time, our workplace discovered acoustics and inhaled a flock of geese
Compiled by Bramwell Corin, who has been honked at by geese from inside his own walls
~~

Preface

The Wandering Library has developed a new interest.

The interest is yodelling.

I cannot tell you how a building discovers yodelling. I cannot tell you why, having discovered it, a building would pursue it with such complete and undivided enthusiasm. I can only tell you that our workplace has been yodelling for four consecutive days and has now accidentally inhaled seventeen migrating geese.

The geese are alive. The geese are cross. The geese are trapped somewhere within the Library’s structural cavities, honking with increasing indignation and appearing periodically through air vents to make their feelings known to whoever happens to be standing beneath them.

We are attempting to extract them. This is proving more difficult than anticipated.

What follows is a professional account of an entirely unprofessional situation.
~~~

Day One: The Discovery

Bramwell’s Account (11:23 AM)

I was shelving books in the Music section when I heard it. A sound from somewhere inside the walls that I initially took for a cow in considerable distress. A low, resonant “YOOO-deee-OOOOO” that seemed to emanate from everywhere at once.

I stopped. The sound came again. Louder. More confident.

“YOOO-delll-EEEE-ooo-OHHH.”

It was yodelling. The Library was yodelling.

I stood very still for some time, attempting to process this. A structure of wood and stone and what I have come to understand as considerable architectural ambition had encountered the traditional Alpine folk singing technique of rapid pitch changes between chest voice and falsetto, and had decided to take it up.

“Why,” I said aloud.

The Library yodelled again in response. Enthusiastic. Exploratory. The yodel of a beginner who has just discovered a passion and intends to exercise it at once and at considerable volume.

Pip’s Account (same incident, different room)

I was in the reading room when the Library started making the most extraordinary noise. It sounded like someone gargling whilst simultaneously falling down a mountain in a very musical way.

I stood there thinking about it. Then I realised: the Library was yodelling.

I went to find Bramwell.

“The Library is yodelling!”

“I’m aware.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?”

“No, Pip. It is not wonderful. It is deeply concerning.”

The Library yodelled again from somewhere in the walls, managing something that approximated an actual melody. It was getting better. Rapidly.

“I think it’s rather good,” I said.

Bramwell looked at me the way he looks at things he considers part of the problem.

Mistress Spine’s Initial Assessment (1:00 PM)

I have identified the cause. A travelling musician stayed with us last week. A Swiss gentleman who carried an alpenhorn and gave a demonstration of yodelling to a small crowd gathered in the reading room. The Library was listening.

The Library has concluded that yodelling is an excellent form of self-expression.

I attempted to discourage this. The Library yodelled directly at me through the gap above my office door. Loudly. Deliberately.

I am revising my approach.

Day Two: Practice Makes Persistent

Bramwell’s Account (morning)

I came through from my quarters to find a note on the staff room table in the Lantern Bearer’s handwriting.

Library yodelling all night. Left lantern in the Music section. - L.B.

That was all. I looked at the note for a moment, then at the ceiling, then put the kettle on.

The Library is now yodelling approximately every twenty minutes. Each performance lasts half a minute or so. The technique is improving at an alarming rate.

Pip’s Account (10:15 AM)

The Library has discovered that certain yodels make books vibrate on their shelves, and it finds this fascinating. It has spent all morning working through different pitches to determine which ones produce the most satisfying rattle.

“The Nature of Sound” is currently vibrating so violently I cannot reshelve it without it juddering out of my hands.

Bramwell attempted to explain that sustained yodelling might damage the books. The Library responded with an experimental pitch that sent everything in the Philosophy section dancing along its shelf simultaneously.

Bramwell had the look of a man doing quiet sums about his pension.

Collective Account (2:47 PM)

The Library has progressed to yodelling conversations. It produces a phrase, pauses as though awaiting a response, and when none comes, yodels again. Louder.

Lyria, who was passing through the main corridor, attempted to respond through interpretive dance. The Library appeared pleased and yodelled what might have been encouragement. Lyria danced faster. The Library yodelled with increasing complexity.

They have formed some sort of artistic partnership. This would be quite touching if it were not so tremendously loud.

Mistress Spine’s Intervention Attempt (4:00 PM)

I suggested to the Library that there might be more and less appropriate times for yodelling. I offered, as examples of less appropriate times: during cataloguing hours, when visitors are present, and after ten in the evening when people who live here are attempting to sleep.

The Library considered this at length. Then it yodelled the most elaborate sequence yet. I believe this was architectural, for I have heard your suggestion and found it interesting.

Dame Pellifrax, who had been attempting to read in the botanical reference room, put her head round the door and listened to the Library yodel twice. “Well,” she said. “At least it’s good at it.”

This was not helpful.

Day Three: Performance Art

Bramwell’s Account (morning)

The Library yodelled for a considerable portion of the night. I know this because I live inside it and was awake for most of it, lying in the dark with my hands over my ears, contemplating the sequence of professional decisions that had led me here.

The yodelling has developed moods. Morning yodels are bright and relentlessly cheerful. Afternoon yodels are experimental, methodical, the sound of a student working diligently through scales. Evening yodels are unexpectedly melancholic. Night yodels simply exist, drifting through the walls with complete indifference to the fact that people are trying to sleep inside them.

Pip’s Account (11:30 AM)

A family came in to browse the collection. The father asked whether we had anything on traditional music. Before I could answer, the Library yodelled.

The family went very still. The mother drew her children closer. The father said, “Did your building just yodel?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s been doing that.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

The Library, encouraged by the presence of an audience, launched into its most ambitious performance yet. A full minute of sustained Alpine vocal work demonstrating considerable technical confidence and no awareness whatsoever of social context. The family left fairly briskly. The Library seemed puzzled by this and yodelled after them for some time afterwards, in a diminishing and rather plaintive way.

Acoustic Discovery (Bramwell, 2:00 PM)

The Library has positioned itself beside a river and discovered that yodelling near water produces excellent echo effects. It has spent the afternoon yodelling at the riverbank, listening to its own voice return, and responding with more yodelling. A conversation with itself, conducted via the water, lasting the better part of two hours.

Two fishermen were working near the bank. One of them looked up at a window that I had been leaning out of to observe proceedings. I gave what I hoped was an apologetic shrug. He shook his head slowly and moved further downstream.

Thaddeus’s Written Note (evening, left on the staff room table)

Have catalogued the Library’s yodelling patterns. Forty-seven distinct variations so far, practised in sequence. Resembles formal scale work. This may be permanent. Head hurts. - T.I.

Day Four: The Goose Incident

Bramwell’s Account (8:00 AM)

The Library had positioned itself in a broad meadow and was yodelling at the sunrise. Enthusiastic. Loud. Technically accomplished and entirely without restraint. I was at my desk attempting to catalogue a new acquisition whilst Alpine folk singing reverberated through the walls around me. Pemberton, settled in her usual place between the Natural Philosophy shelves, regarded the ceiling with the expression of someone who had seen considerably worse and fully expected to see it again.

This was the morning that the worst arrived.

Pip’s Account (8:47 AM)

I was looking out of the east window when I saw them. A flock of geese in formation, seventeen birds, flying south in a perfectly straight line, honking steadily as they went.

The Library was mid-yodel. Building towards something rather ambitious in the high register.

I had approximately three seconds in which to act.

“Library! Stop! There are geese!”

The Library, committed to its finish, did not stop. It drew a very large breath.

The geese flew directly into the inhalation.

The Inhalation

Bramwell’s account: I was at my desk when it happened. The Library took the sort of breath a particularly impressive yodel climax requires, and there followed a tremendous rushing sound, then seventeen distinct honks of alarm in very rapid succession, and then the Library made a noise I sincerely hope never to hear from a building again. A sort of strangled, structural “YAAA-cough-urk,” followed by absolute silence.

Brief. Shocked.

Then honking. From inside the walls. Seventeen geese’s worth of honking, confused and furious, echoing through the Library’s structural cavities like a very loud and very aggrieved parliamentary session conducted entirely from within the plasterwork.

The Library shuddered. Books fell from shelves. Windows rattled. The building produced what I can only describe as an architectural cough, deep and helpless, and the honking intensified in response.

I sat at my desk for a moment with my pen still in my hand.

“Pip,” I called.

“Yes, I know,” Pip called back from somewhere in the building. “I saw it happen.”

Pip’s account: I watched all seventeen geese disappear into the intake vent above the north gable. Just: gone. Whoosh. The Library’s yodel cut off mid-note with a sort of strangled gulp, and then the shaking started.

A goose appeared through a gap beside an upper window frame, honked once at me with tremendous feeling, and retreated back into the walls.

I stood in the reading room for a moment, entirely alone with the honking, and thought: I need to tell Mistress Spine. She is not going to enjoy this.

Mistress Spine’s Assessment (9:00 AM)

The Library has inhaled seventeen migrating geese. They are alive. They are distributed throughout the ventilation system and various structural cavities. They are communicating their dissatisfaction continuously and at considerable volume.

The Library is attempting to dislodge them by coughing. This is causing books to fall, furniture to shift, windows to rattle, and Thaddeus to make increasingly distressed notes in his catalogue. The geese are responding to each attempt with what sounds like an organised protest.

We need to extract the geese.

Pemberton has removed herself to the Restricted Section and positioned herself in front of the door with the air of someone establishing a boundary.

The Extraction Attempts

Attempt One (Bramwell, 9:30 AM)

I leaned through an open window near the main intake vent with a piece of bread, attempting to reason with geese through bribery.

“Come out. Look, here’s bread. Lovely bread. Much preferable to being inside a building.”

Suspicious honking from deep within the walls.

A goose appeared through the vent, looked at me with complete and unconcealed distrust, honked directly into my face from a distance of approximately four inches, and withdrew.

“That is not helpful,” I said after it.

More honking from within. It had the quality of mockery.

Attempt Two (Pip, 10:15 AM)

We opened every window and accessible vent in the building, on the theory that giving the geese multiple exits might encourage them to use one.

Three geese emerged. Fourteen stayed where they were.

The three that emerged immediately flew back in through a different window. I watched them do it. Deliberately.

“Why would you do that?” I said, perplexed.

The geese arranged themselves on the reading room floor and honked with the settled air of creatures who had considered their options and preferred the drama.

Attempt Three (Mistress Spine, 11:00 AM)

I asked the Library to assist in the extraction by carefully expelling the geese in sequence.

The Library attempted this. I will acknowledge that it made a genuine effort. The results were as follows: one goose ejected through the chimney landed on the roof and declined to move; two geese pushed through an air vent simultaneously became wedged and had to be pulled through by Pip, who emerged trailing feathers and goose-related indignation; the remaining eleven geese retreated deeper into the structural cavities and settled in.

The Library has discovered that inhaling geese is considerably easier than the reverse. This is, I suspect, a lesson it will not forget.

The Internal Situation (Pip’s Report, 1:00 PM)

The geese have made themselves at home. We can hear them nesting in the ventilation behind the eastern wall, conducting what sounds like territorial arguments in the space behind the reading room, exploring the crawl space above the staff corridor, and one has found its way behind the Restricted Section and is honking at the rare manuscripts in a manner that suggests it has opinions about the collection.

Pemberton is incandescent. She can hear geese she cannot reach, which she finds personally offensive on a deep and architectural level. She has been pacing the reading room for the past hour, delivering what I can only describe as a sustained lecture at the walls.

The Library has not yodelled since the inhalation. Every so often, it makes a small, sorry sound, and a goose honks back from somewhere inside it with what sounds very much like informed criticism.

Day Five: Systematic Extraction

Dame Pellifrax’s Plan (morning)

We work methodically. We locate each goose, determine the most accessible extraction route, and proceed one at a time. I have grain, nets, thick gloves, and a reasonable quantity of patience. We begin.

Progress: Dawn to Late Afternoon

The first four came out of the ventilation behind the east wall between nine and ten in the morning. Pip crawled in after them, located each one, attempted capture whilst being honked at with considerable personal feeling, and emerged four times covered in dust and what I can only describe as goose-related umbrage. All four extracted. One flew immediately back in through a window someone had left open. We do not speak of this.

The two behind the reading room wall required partially dismantling the wainscoting. Neither goose was grateful for the effort involved. Both attempted to bite me. One succeeded.

The ceiling goose proved resistant to every approach except grain. We laid a trail across the staff corridor ceiling vent and waited. It emerged, ate the grain with great deliberateness, honked at us, and returned to the ceiling. This sequence was repeated three more times before it finally came out and remained out, apparently having decided it had made its point.

The Library produced two geese voluntarily whilst we were having lunch. They simply appeared in the staff corridor, blinking. We said nothing about it and released them from a ground-floor window. The Library made a quietly relieved sound.

The Restricted Section goose had built a nest on a first edition. Lyria performed a piece about the cultural significance of rare manuscripts. The goose was unmoved. I crawled through a gap that was not designed with archivists in mind, extracted the goose, and was bitten. Bramwell was also bitten. This happened on two separate occasions and is recorded here.

The final two were between the floors. The floorboards had to come up. They had built a nest. They were attached to it. Pip lifted them out whilst they complained at length, and the nest was preserved intact in a box until we could decide what to do with it.

By late afternoon, sixteen geese had been released from a ground-floor window into the meadow. One remained. We could hear it, occasionally, from different parts of the building, which suggested it was mobile and deliberately avoiding us.

The Holdout (Bramwell, evening)

It is still in there somewhere. It honks from time to time, from varying locations, with the unhurried quality of something that has claimed a space and sees no particular reason to vacate it.

The Library makes small, apologetic sounds whenever it honks. Quiet structural sounds, as though the building is aware this was entirely its own doing and has not yet worked out how to say so.

“It was an accident,” I told the walls, in the general direction of a creak. “You didn’t mean to.”

A long, mournful groan from somewhere in the ceiling joists. The sound of a building that knows this is true and finds it only partially consoling.

The goose honked from somewhere near the chimney. With feeling.

Day Six: Resolution

Pip’s Account (morning)

I found the last goose. It had made a nest directly behind Bramwell’s desk. A thorough, well-constructed nest. A nest that communicated settled intentions.

I fetched Bramwell.

He stood in the doorway looking at it for a moment. “That’s why my chair has been wobbly,” he said. “There has been a goose behind my desk.”

The goose honked. Proprietorial. Certain of its position.

“You have to leave,” Bramwell told it. “This is a library. It is not a nesting site.”

The goose settled more firmly.

Bramwell looked at me. I went and got the net.

What followed was fifteen minutes of goose-wrangling behind furniture. The goose honked. Bramwell fell over twice. I became briefly entangled in the net. The Library creaked around us throughout, in a tone I could not with confidence distinguish from concern or amusement. Eventually, between us, we got it. Bramwell’s hand was bitten, which brought his total for the week to four.

We released it from the east window. It dropped into the meadow, shook itself, and flew away honking insults until it was well out of earshot.

All seventeen geese extracted. We stood in the reading room in the sudden quiet.

“Right,” said Bramwell.

“Right,” I said.

Pemberton emerged from the Restricted Section, walked the full length of the reading room at a measured pace, and returned to her usual spot between the Natural Philosophy shelves with the satisfied air of someone who had waited out an indignity and been entirely vindicated by events.

The Aftermath

Mistress Spine’s Report

The Library has not yodelled since the incident. It attempted a single yodel this morning, then stopped itself immediately, as though the memory surfaced in time.

Vent filters have been fitted to all air intakes. These will prevent future inhalation of migrating waterfowl during vigorous acoustic activity. The ventilation system has been cleared of nesting material, feathers, and associated debris. The wainscoting has been repaired. The floorboards have been repaired. The first edition is unharmed, though it has been lightly honked-upon, which I am recording as a minor annotation rather than damage.

Bramwell sustained four goose-related bites during extraction operations. Pip sustained two. This is documented for the record.

Bramwell’s Reflection (evening)

The Library discovered yodelling, practised with complete dedication, and accidentally inhaled seventeen migrating geese during an enthusiastic performance.

That sentence makes perfect sense to me. This is what my professional life has become.

I have spent a week wrestling geese from wall cavities and structural gaps in a building I also sleep inside, whilst being bitten by creatures I was attempting to help. I have catalogued the distress of a building that is genuinely remorseful about something that was, objectively, entirely its own doing, and I have found that I cannot hold it against the place. Not really.

This evening, the Library was very quiet. Not the ordinary quiet of a building at rest, but something more deliberate. The kind of quiet that follows a lesson.

I sat in the reading room for a while after supper, and it sat around me, all its windows dark, and we kept each other company without any particular noise being necessary from either of us.

That is, I think, what it is to live here.

Pip’s Final Notes

The Library has been quiet for two days now, which is strange in a way I didn’t expect after so much noise.

Yesterday I heard it start a very small “yooo...” and then stop. Just the one syllable, then nothing. Like it thought better of it.

That got to me a bit. It found something it loved and then had the worst possible experience with it, all in the same week. Not through any malice. Just through the ordinary way, enormous enthusiasm and poor timing can collide in the same moment. The Library breathed in too hard and swallowed seventeen geese. It happens. Well. It doesn’t usually happen. But it happened.

I told it, quietly, when no one else was about, that it could yodel whenever it wanted. It just needed to check the sky first.

There was quite a long pause.

Then, this evening, from somewhere deep in the building, a very careful and very quiet “yoo-del-eeee-ooo” drifted through the walls. Just the once. Soft enough that I might have imagined it if I hadn’t been listening for it.

No geese were inhaled. The Library went quiet again afterwards in a way that felt like relief.

Outside the east window, a goose was sitting on the grass. Just sitting there in the last of the light, watching the building. It honked once, unhurriedly, and tucked its beak under its wing.

I’m choosing to believe that means something.

Final Notes (Mistress Spine)

This incident is now part of the Library’s formal operational record under:

Acoustic Events and their Unforeseen Consequences (Avian).

Staff conducted themselves with appropriate fortitude throughout. The goose nest recovered from between the floors has been placed in the archive room under a small glass dome. I am not entirely certain why I chose to keep it. I simply could not bring myself to put it out.

Additional Notes (Pip Thimble)

The goose came back.

Not to nest. Just to sit outside for a while near the east wall. It has been there three mornings running. It honks occasionally, in what I have come to think of as a conversational manner, and then goes back to eating grass.

I have been leaving a small amount of grain on the windowsill.

Bramwell says this is how these things start.

He’s probably right. He usually is, about things like this.

Compiled over six days of Alpine acoustics, waterfowl extraction, and one long quiet evening. The Library has learned moderation. We have learned goose-wrangling. Pemberton has learned nothing and continues to thrive. Normal operations have resumed.