KELLS, CO. MEATH — The queue to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin has grown so long that its tail now stretches the full 69 km up the road and into Kells, where confused visitors at the back report being "surprisingly close to the actual point."
The line, which began as a modest shuffle across the cobbles of College Green, is understood to have crept out through the city, along the motorway hard shoulder, past Navan, and into Kells at some point on Tuesday, finally coming to rest beside the Market Cross.
"We were told the Book was at the front," said one fictional tourist from Ohio, a composite of every coach party that has ever asked for directions. "Then a local lady told us the Book was made here, at the back. So now I don't know which end I'm meant to be excited about."
Queue marshals, in the form of retractable belt barriers that have apparently multiplied unsupervised along the N3, keep the line moving at a steady pace of about one step every eleven minutes. Laminated signs posted at intervals read "Estimated wait from this point: 4 hours," "Estimated wait from this point: 2 days," and, just outside Kells, "Estimated wait from this point: consider bringing it home instead."
Nobody has admitted to writing the last one.
Kells has responded with characteristic hospitality. Cafés along the main street are selling "Back of the Queue" breakfasts. One shop has started offering folding chairs for hire. A local walking group has begun giving informal tours to people at the tail end, pointing out the High Crosses, the site of the old monastery, and the general area where, over a thousand years ago, monks put in the work the queue is now paying to look at.
"It's a lovely spot to wait," said one fictional Kells shopkeeper, also a composite. "Most people only come here to realise they've come to the wrong place. This lot came to the right place and are still queueing to leave it."
Transport experts warn the situation may be self-reinforcing. Every tourist who arrives in Kells hears the town's story, which has the unfortunate side effect of making the Book seem more worth seeing, which lengthens the queue, which pushes more tourists into Kells. Modelling suggests that by spring the line may loop back on itself, forming a complete ring between College Green and Kells, which a fictional Meath engineer described as "the most expensive way ever devised of not doing the obvious thing."
The obvious thing, according to almost everyone standing near the Market Cross, is to turn the queue around.
"Here's a thought," said a fictional retired bus driver, gesturing at the 69 km of people facing Dublin. "Instead of moving all those tourists to one book, move one book to where it came from. Then the queue starts here. It's the same queue. It just points home."
Diaspora visitors have joined the line in growing numbers, many of them flying in to stand at the Kells end specifically. "My grandmother left from near here," said one fictional visitor from Boston. "I figured if I'm going to wait all day for the Book, I should wait somewhere it actually belongs."
At time of writing the queue remained stationary outside the Kells library, its members sharing flasks, swapping phone chargers and, increasingly, turning around to face the other way, just to see how it feels.