The Man Who Returns the Books

What it looks like, and what it does

A man in a beige raincoat with a canvas bag of books, their corners always damp. A library card in his breast pocket with different names stamped on it. Inside each book, a pressed flower, a ticket or a bookmark.

Visits on the first of each month. Is polite and unhurried. Declines a receipt for himself.

What is known

He arrives at branch libraries when they open, queues, and returns three to seven books at the desk. The system accepts them, each overdue under a name that no longer appears in any register.

The fines are paid in coins that predate the card system. The things pressed inside are small and specific: a train ticket, a dried geranium, a note reading “I will finish this tomorrow.” Librarians have begun to file them in an envelope under the title, in case anyone asks.

What it can do

• Finds and returns books borrowed by the dead, from wherever they were left
• Pays fines in obsolete currency

Where it stops

• Cannot return a book that is still being read
• Cannot enter a library after closing

An encounter

Whitcombe checked in a copy of a novel last borrowed in 1964 and found a bus ticket at chapter nine. She pasted it into the envelope. The man asked, as he always did, whether anyone had come to ask about it. She said not yet. He said that he would keep coming.

Dolores Whitcombe, branch librarian, Branch library, Stanhope Road, The first of the month, 09:00

What is established, and what is only said

• established: Forty-one returned books have been traced to borrowers whose deaths were registered before the return date.
• rumor: That families have been called after a book was returned and asked, gently, whether they would like the envelope.
• interpretation: He may be returning more than books, to those who will not yet admit that it was a loan.

Still unresolved

No one has recorded him borrowing a book. He has no card in his own name.

Where it has been recorded

• Stanhope Road (confirmed) — Recorded by Dolores Whitcombe, branch librarian.

Stories about it

• All Books Are Overdue (Entity story, 4 min) — Every first of the month a branch library accepts returns on behalf of the dead, their fines paid in obsolete coins, and its librarian files the pressed things in an envelope in case anyone asks.

Connected entities

• The Unsent — Both deliver what the dead left undelivered. Neither has been seen to receive anything.