So the rules had to be changed. We had both agreed that it would end up being in everyone’s best interests to have things organized differently around the library. The old style wasn’t holding up right, not with so many new books. The alphabet method was prompting a lot of melding where too many homogeneous forces aligned to bend reality in inauspicious ways. Especially in the X and the Y and the Z sections, where terrible things emerged that tested the limits of imagination.

It wasn’t going to be easy. The library itself was used to the old method, in fact many of the shelves remained undisturbed for thousands of years. The nature of this organization had dyed itself into the groves of the place. And the library didn’t like change, even putting in a few new books would see it grumble and gnash for hours. Rearranging all the shelves could end up being downright dangerious as well as exhausting.

Me and the head librarian discussed it at great length, neither of us getting very far, and it was when we were at our most desperate and frustrated I suggested, half-joking, we try to trick the library. The head librarian didn’t say anything in responce (I had expected another humorless chuckle), and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized he was giving it serious consideration.

“But we couldn’t actually do something like that,” I suggested, “The library is smarter than that. How could we possibly hope to fool it? And, and even if we did, what would happen if it found out? Imagine its rage.” I shivered, and it wasn’t completly for effect.

The head librarian said it was, nevertheless, worth a try. Things were becoming dangerious at the library as they stood, after all, best to try and take care of things now if we wanted to keep the whole thing under our control. I reluctantly agreed, as when we got down to it, it was the only actable idea either of us had come up with, and it was certainly better than doing nothing. If things were bad in the Q wing now, imagine, he said, if we gave it another decade. It was all the convincing I needed.

The details of the plan were simple enough. Almost childishly so, actually. We would take the books and organize them randomly, but keep the labels as they were. This would diffuse the pockets of warped reality where the narratives had begun to bleed into one another, we hoped. If more popped up thanks to our organization, we’d smooth them out as they popped up. I asked if this would be inconvenient for anyone hoping to actually find a book within the library. We both had a bit of a laugh at that.

It took us both working together about eight hundred years to reorganize everything. The library didn’t shudder, or move, or anything like I was expecting, and in a way that was worse. It wasn’t until we finished that we noticed the little burps in geometry that had formed in all the places where we had rearranged everything. We can’t even get to the books, now.