M49 (OR; The Eventual Interpretation of Hospital Ceiling Tiles)

READERS NOTE

All figures named in the events of this text existed, and their stories have not been tampered with. This work is a collage of collected texts – including interviews, diary entries, poems, auto-biographical documents, and A.I. interpreted prose – all of which are smaller parts of a larger whole in relation to the mystery of the M49 Door.

Jack Bennett, the editor of the original edition of M49, was a student of English Literature at the University of Edge Hill, Lancashire, from 1918 to 1921. This text was the product of an assignment of the Global Archives module that Bennett undertook. In the module, Bennett was to research a subject enveloped in ambiguity, gathering sources from various archives, and produce a coherent and factual narrative to give answers on the subject. During this module, he developed a strong fascination – some critics have rather assumed it an obsession – toward a door found in his university. Via this fascination, the research project of M49 was conceived.

Concerning the various conspiracies around M49 that have surfaced since its initial publication, there are theories that the components of the text are fictitious, that it is in fact a creative response, and that Bennett sat outside the Door, listening, waiting, searching.

Whether this is a text to be read as fiction or non-fiction could be argued as an unproductive stance when consuming Bennett’s work. One may, instead, choose to stand at the mid-point of fact and fiction to hear its utmost effect.

— The Editors of The Bernard Edition