Libby Banks
Documentation of Absence
FINAL REPORT: Project ECLIPSE (Ethno-Cartographic Logging of Intermittent Perceptual Settlement Enclave)
To: The Regional Development Authority
From: Dr. Eric Striker, Lead Investigator
Subject: Conclusion of field study regarding spatial anomaly at coordinates 30.761393017998063, -96.08541285480268
I have failed to provide the documentation you requested. I have no verifiable photographs. My field notes, when reviewed directly, are illegible. The following is not a record of what I found.
1.0: Initial Sighting and Phenomenological Description
I was recruited to analyze the anomaly on 23 October. During my initial pedestrian survey, in my peripheral vision, I registered structures inconsistent with existing topographic maps. Initial architectural impressions: slate roofs and brick buildings. The phenomenon persisted solely as a peripheral recurrence. When attempting direct ocular engagement, only grass was perceived.
The enclave demonstrated stable, internal weather systems. I smelled baking bread and heard children at play. A subject appeared daily at a central well.
The village was undeniably real. It could not be seen under the conditions of direct observation.
2.0: Methodological Attempts
2.1: Photographic Documentation: A high-resolution camera was positioned on a tripod to record directly while I maintained peripheral visual contact. Result: 236 images of an empty field. Conclusion: the photographic lens constitutes a form of direct observation.
2.2: Acoustic Recording: Digital audio equipment captured wind and avian fauna, but failed to record any of the perceptible human activity (voices, a bell tower) that I could hear clearly while standing in the same location.
2.3: Geodetic Measurement: All measurements returned data consistent with a flat, empty grassland. The structures present in phenomenological experience were absent in all empirical data.
2.4: Census Attempt: Attempts to count inhabitants of anomaly were ineffectual due to incapacity for direct observation. However, a relational dynamic is possible. For five months, I have waved to the woman at the central well from a distance, using peripheral vision. She waves back.
2.5: Corroborative Witness (Subject B): I brought my daughter, age 10. She identified the settlement immediately in peripheral vision. She asked to visit the settlement, and turned toward it. Upon her looking directly, the village vanished from her line of sight. She has not mentioned the village since. I sometimes observe her gazing past things with her head tilted.
2.6: Written Description: Attempts to document my observations in a field notebook appeared accurate while writing, but all notes devolved into nonsensical scribbles upon subsequent review. Hypothesis: immediate transcription constitutes direct capture. This report, however, is written from memory. It describes the echo.
3.0: Analysis and Unverifiable Theory
The village exists in the moment before perception.
I cannot determine whether direct observation harms the village or merely destroys the observer's capacity to perceive it. Whether the village would cease to exist if all peripheral observers were eliminated remains unknown.
4.0: Project Scope and Ethical Conclusion
Your commission, sourced from reports of a "spatial anomaly," was clear. You needed to know if anything of value existed in the planned location of "Springborne Commercial & Residential Expansion." I was hired to perform the advanced work of erasure.
Here is my central finding: if I had succeeded in documenting the village completely, there would be no village in my perception left to document.
The village exists and is inhabited. Life continues there.
Relationship is possible - I wave to the woman at the well most mornings. Knowledge of internal workings of the village is possible - the children play in the late afternoon. Community is possible - we coexist without demanding each other's full legibility.
I was hired to document so development could proceed.
Some truths die when pinned down. Let this one live.
ADDENDUM (Filed 6 Months Post-Initial Report)
Three subsequent researchers have been commissioned to study the phenomenon. Each succeeded in obtaining the data I declined to collect: comprehensive photographic archives, full-spectrum acoustic analysis, and topographical scans. Their reports are flawless, comprehensive, irrefutable. All three confirm: nothing exists there.
They produced verifiable documentation of absence. I preserved presence.
The Regional Development Authority has approved the project. Construction begins next month.
Libby Banks is a therapist and writer in New Mexico. Her work explores neurodivergence, legibility, and the ethics of knowing. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Wordgathering, Heavy Feather Review, Disappointed Housewife, and elsewhere.
