Story: "The Library" by Joely

He drifted, as he often did, when he found himself in the library. Up more and more staircases, to get lost in the older less renovated upper stories. Away from the clacking keys and hushed whispers of everyone, everyone else who only came to libraries now because they had to or because they needed to but not because they felt or wanted to feel anything.

They were like tourists in a cathedral.

Upstairs the hallways no one went down and no one remembered were darker and smaller but somehow grander and stronger than the rooms downstairs. Up there, the stone walls and squeaking wood floors had not been replaced with plaster and tile and lit by the sterile glow of fluorescent lighting. The brass fixtures that lit or were supposed to light the upstairs rooms were more often out than not, and in their warm glow, he could see rows and rows of old books. He'd never been in this room before. It was one of the many that contained the valuable books that had never been allowed to leave the library and now, forgotten were moldering in their graves. He loved these rooms of the library and the things he could find there. He leaned up against a box to think and it, being lighter than he'd assumed, slid away from him along the wall. He jumped up, shocked at what he'd discovered. The box, only half full of parts of old books and papers, was about half the height of a door and had been concealing exactly that. The bottom half of an old carved wood door he'd failed to notice, covered the top half. He was pleased with his discovery having never been this far into the library, and pleased that there was even more to be discovered. He twisted the ornate brass doorknob and pulled open the door.

"Come on in, and we'll find yours" said the last thing in the world he expected to see, an old man in wire rimed glasses behind a desk in the messiest room in the world. "What" the boy asked. "We'll find what it is you're looking for. A book, right?" the man asked, as if he already knew the answer and started digging through the piles and shelves of papers, books, pictures, music sheets, and other debris littering the room. All the while muttering to himself as if he was making a mockery or looking for something, but knowing where it was the whole time, pretending he didn't.

"Where could it be?"

"It's got to be here."

"Oops that's not it," the man stood up and came over to the boy. "There it is!" he yelled and reached his hand straight at the boys chest, however he must have seen it wrong because before the boy could look down, the mans hand was holding an enormous book that must have come off a shelf behind him. The boy had seen it wrong. The man must have reached a little to the left or right of him and it had only seemed like he had reached into him. "Who are you?" asked the boy. The old man looked old and wise as he thought, "I suppose I'm the reason people come to this place" he said. "But what reason is that?" asked the boy. The man laughed, "If I could tell you that, how could you tell anyone else?" "And you just sit around in this room in the library all day?" the boy wondered. "Ah, a library," said the man, "Is that where we are." He looked pleased. At first, the man had seemed old and neglected, but now seemed spritely, alive, and full of potential. It was as if the old man mirrored the boy's interest in him. "Here's your book," said the man, who, with ease handed the book to the boy who at once dropped the heavy thing. "I can't lift it" said the boy, "I can't open it, either." "You'll have to do better than that," said the man, "if you're going to get it out of here, and it won't do you any good in here." The man looked sadly down at the boy as he tried again to pull the book out of the room.

....to be continued? (I'll try to convince Joel to finish the story, but in the mean time I thought it was a nice ponderant piece and also, I just love libraries).