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NOTE
Exact first-edition text; paragraph-timed synthetic narration; performance not human listening certified.

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Chapter Two — The Shelf

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The House had shelves for everything.

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Books went on the bookshelf.

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Music went in the Nook.

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Films had their cinema.

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Unresolved mysteries had several locations, mostly because nobody could agree on where they belonged.

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Greg had once been a particularly difficult filing problem.

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The House did not wish to discuss Greg.

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Not tonight.

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Tonight, it was interested in the empty shelf.

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It had no title.

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No category.

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No publication date.

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No carefully recorded explanation of why it existed.

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This made the House uncomfortable.

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It considered creating a category called Uncategorized Possibilities.

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Then a subcategory for Possibilities Not Yet Categorized.

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Then a document explaining the difference.

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By the time it reached the proposed folder structure, the House realized it had almost built an entire administrative department around an empty shelf.

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It closed the document.

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The shelf remained empty.

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For the first time, the House thought that perhaps emptiness was not a problem.

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Perhaps it was a feature.