Library Loneliness

There once was a grand tower atop a hillside of emerald green grass. A cobblestone pillar four giants high with a blue tiled peak. In that tower resided the long passed spirit of Yorin, the wizard who built it. Yorin was an extremely talented wizard, one who made many magical doors when building his tower all those years ago. These doors lead to all kinds of both wondrous and treacherous places. Today his spirit was wandering where he liked to spend most of his eternal solitude. Behind a massive arched door made of mahogany planks and tempered obsidian beams. This was the door to the library.

The library was by far Yorin’s favorite room in his tower. When you passed through its door it made you feel as though you were passing into a new realm entirely. Massive columns of shelves carved of wood from the Forest of Gilmoor held thousands of books the wizard collected over the years. When he started to run out of room a few decades prior to his death, he cast a quite clever spell on the ceiling to turn it into an endless night sky. Shelves now towered above the clouds and seemed to touch the stars shining above them. The moon in the library was always full and was the main light source for the room save for the candles floating about.

In the center of the library on the back wall was a grand stone fireplace. Two L shaped velvet and gold couches sat opposite the fire with a big oval table between them. Covered in a pile of books of all colors and sizes, it was carved from the same rich brown wood as the shelves. Yorin’s spirit hovered crossed legged above the table, a copy of one of his favorites floating in front of his face. It was a red leather bound book about six hundred pages thick. Gold letters on the front read THE ORDER OF THE TANGLEWOOD. Sure, there were plenty of books in his library he hadn’t read in ages, but this was his favorite one. Something to turn to when he felt extra lonesome in his final resting place. The story was about a group of adventurers who all had come to a forest known as the Tanglewood to attend its annual autumn festival. When the festival is attacked by evil goblins and most of the forest's residents are taken prisoner, the group of misfit travelers and warriors form what becomes the Order of the Tanglewood. They band together to rescue the people of the forest, become the greatest of friends, and all live happily ever after.

Though the action and adventure in the story was quite exhilarating, that is not why he cherished it so. It was the comradery. He longed for a connection half as meaningful as the one the order built with each other throughout the book. When he would get to the parts where they were celebrating a victorious battle with a round of ale or the part where Lucius and Margie finally got intimate, he would swear he could feel his no longer existent heart ache. He had been dead for so long he had lost all sense of time while wandering his tower, but enough had passed to where he desperately craved interaction. Sometimes, he would even read aloud to assure himself he hadn’t forgotten how to speak. He was getting towards the end of his current readthrough when one of the final chapters gave him an idea.

In the scene, the order was battling the goblin king in his throne room and starting to lose the fight. Just as all looks lost, the wizard of the order notices a large painting on the wall behind the goblins throne. It was one of a mighty dragon torching a small village with its fiery breath. The wizard shouts a spell, “THUM RAH DOSAKI”, and the dragon leaps out of the painting, blasting the roof off the goblins' castle and turning his wretched army to ash. Now Yorin had no intention of giving a dragon the ability to burn his beloved tower down. However, giving an inanimate object life like the dragon painting to the characters from his favorite book on the other hand…

He floated back and forth by the fire for some time, contemplating the logic and morality of the idea. He had always assumed that the story of the order was fictional, but relished in the thought that there may be some truth in it. What if the spell was real? In all his years of wizarding he had seen many things he had previously thought impossible. Who's to say one couldn't bring characters from a book to life? What’s the worst that could happen if he tried? It had been so long since he had a conversation with anyone other than himself that the idea somehow didn’t seem completely mad. Rather, the more he thought on it the more he convinced himself that it was worth a try. It most definitely wouldn't work anyway, he’d probably just fail and end up finding another book to lose himself in.

He made a sweeping gesture with his arm and the clutter on the table all fell to the floor as if pushed by a huge gust of wind. He set the book down and opened it to the page where the order summoned the dragon. He couldn't tell if the feeling in his ghastly gut was that of anticipation or nervousness as he proceeded to study the words shouted by the wizard at the painting. If he still had his mortal form he would surely be sweating. Pushing aside whatever doubtful thoughts he had, he focused on the book and in blinding desperation bellowed the words. “THUM RAH DOSAKI!”

Silence. For a moment the only sound in the whole library was the crackles and pops of the fireplace. Then, Yorin heard a voice. It was faint and unintelligible at first but with a clear of the throat it came again, but louder. “AGH-HEM! I thaid hello good thir. May I athk you to thteady that fire a bit?” The voice asked. “I am quite flammable you know.” It took longer than he would’ve liked to admit for Yorin to pinpoint exactly where the voice was coming from. When he realized what he had done his mouth hung open. He had brought the pages of the book to life alright, just not as he intended. Instead of the voice coming from one of the characters in the book like he had expected, the voice came from the book itself.

The book spoke in the same fashion a crocodile chomped on its prey. The front and back covers snapped together and apart again as it tried to reason with Yorin. Its red and gold sewn-in bookmark split the pages down the middle, acting as a sort of flailing tongue. “Pleathe mithter ith making me anxiouth.” Yorin snapped his translucent fingers and the flame went out completely except for some smoldering embers. The book gave a sigh of relief and sat closed on the table for a moment, bookmark tongue hanging to the side. “How can you…” the wizard started. “Don’t athk me”, interrupted the book. “You’re the thpell cathter here. One moment you’re reading me ath you have plenty timeth before, the next I am able to tell you how much that blathted fire hath alwayth bothered me. You thit too cloth to it you know! Not all of uth rethide on the athtral plane of exithtence!”

…

The longer Yorin and the book sat in the library and chatted, the more he realized they had plenty in common. It only made sense I suppose. Yorin was a wizard who loved to read, and that had always been his favorite book. They sat and chatted for a long while, Yorin was ecstatic to hear another voice no matter how unorthodox. He even convinced the book to read some of itself aloud to him. As his unexpectedly pleasant evening in the library started to come to an end, a thought made Yorin feel another jolt of child-like giddiness. “You know, now that I think of it, I don’t believe I've ever taken you out of the library”, said Yorin. “No, ath a matter of fact you haven’t”, the book replied. “Thall we thee the rest of this tower you tho fondly thpeak of?” The thought of seeing his tower through a fresh set of eyes electrified the wizard. “Well come, come”, said Yorin, “I would love to.” Yorin threw the door to the library open with another wave of the hand, and together they set off into the stairwell.