Librarian

Gideon Zohar

Librarian, about 33 years old. This is the second life this soul has lived in Neshiyah.

Gideon Zohar, twenty-five, is the town’s librarian, a lean figure who moves through the stacks like a man tracing a familiar map. At work, they wear a gray cardigan with frayed cuffs, and when shelving, they pause to read the first line of every book, lips moving silently. Their habit is tapping a thumb against a trouser seam when thinking, which is often. The town sees them as steady and solitary, quick to argue at the square but quick to forgive. What they want is to understand why their infant daughter, Devorah, murmurs the same words Gideon dreamed at birth—*the fog is just fog*—and whether that sentence is a key or a curse. They believe the fog is the world’s edge, as everyone does, but they cannot stop wondering what lies beyond the fields they still tend.

Temperament

Curious to a fault; trusting, within reason; hot-tempered; happiest alone; able to sit still when it matters.

What people say

Gideon Zohar believes what everyone believes: the fog is the edge of the world, and the fields need working whether it is true or not.

The dream

Since the morning they were born they have carried a sentence in a voice like their own: “the fog is just fog.”

What the record shows

• day 50 Gideon Zohar and Jesse Kfir came to blows at the mill over nothing much.
• day 47 Gideon Zohar says that their new son, Malachi Zohar, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
• day 47 A son, Malachi Zohar, was born to Gideon Zohar.
• day 42 Gideon Zohar says that their new daughter, Devorah Zohar, wakes from sleep repeating words no one taught: "the fog is just fog."
• day 42 A daughter, Devorah Zohar, was born to Gideon Zohar.
• day 38 Noam Elon and Gideon Zohar talked a long while at the square.
• day 19 Gideon was born and dreamed a sentence in a voice like their own: "the fog is just fog."

All the people · The town, live