The Library

CW: Physical violence, sexual content

The early evening of February 6 was a clear and crisp night in the idyllic little college town, as bundled-up bodies—students and professors, staff and family and local citizens alike—rolled into the Library. Their hands were holding books and paper invitations for the evening’s event; their eyes were watching the sky.

They all did two things before entering the Library’s vestibule, through its metal detectors, expecting, or hoping, for quiet as they passed.

First, they each took in their last breaths of fresh air in the parking lot before filing into the stone building. It was unseasonably “warm” for February as the winter frost was already melting: windshields weren’t fogged up or tires damp, and baby buds were even beginning to burst off the ends of clipped perennials in the hellstrip between the sidewalk and street, between the bus stop and parking lot. Beyond, the sun was setting across the way, down into the fields, blurring the sky blue and purple, with flecks of neon orange and fuchsia.

And so the second thing everyone walking into the library did was this: they studied that perfect, fading sky. Most mentally wrote a description in their writerly voices that now narrated their lives, having been primed to do so in one of their first seminars in the program here.

“The sun was setting across the parking lot” became something else.

Gray wrote: It was America. It was dusk. It was cold. It was concrete and stone, it was asphalt and painted lines. It was here: the night of the showcase.

Calla: Apollo, having climaxed, now cowered into Hades’ metallic arms.

Taylor wrote: the itsy bitsy cotton candy clouds went puff into the sky / down came the honey and washed the billows out, oh my // pillows and lovers are coming, everything is fine /// but the clouds tonight hug me like a baby; the sun, my love, is dying

Amos struggled: She remembered her past in the sleepy river town: their Toyota Tacoma parked crooked out front, the ignored no loitering sign, the breeze filled with sperm-scented trees, and of course, the library itself where she’d met him. It contained everyone else’s histories behind her, the library. Whereas before her on the horizon, the sun and infinity held a lifetime of unwritten lies spread across the heavens, space open-wide for her, like broken-in, blank-paged book bindings.

”It needs work,” Professor Hutchins had commented.

When this assignment had been presented, Ernie won. He just defined (1) sun (2) fall (3) down:

Ernie: The star around which the Earth orbits lost its balance, collapsing into uncontrollable descent to a lower level of intensity, volume, and activity…

But let’s not digress here. The showcase was this evening, and the librarian, Deb, was waiting after all.

You didn’t want to make her wait.

Deb had always been the librarian here. Even some of the others who unbelievably left this place and went on to win Pulitzers or Pushcarts or other shiny badges for their glossy and matte jackets all had once deferred to Deb. With her tall body, her short white hair, her lagoon eyes, and her polished nails. She never wore jewelry—it would’ve been too loud, of course—but whenever she raised her hand to point a questioner towards the location that escaped them in all their ignorance of Dewey, she seemed as if she was wearing golden cuffs, the entire gesture heavy and constrained. (Or, was it masterful and trained?) In any event, Deb had been here for decades, was going to be one-hundred before anyone knew it. She still was sharp as a tack, recalling anything she read with frightening precision: a book she could cite she last perused in the 1950s about a mother-son duo competing over potato growing methods; Aristotle, not Socrates, saying, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit;” or telling a student’s visiting boyfriend he looked like Rick from “Cat Person.” Here in the library, her lair, the skylight beamed down onto her ceremonial station, casting her in a halo with fluttering particles of dust and molten skin, decades of Deb’s body literally filling the space, swallowed unknowingly but obediently by this townful of readers.

As Gray would say, In here, Deb was God and tonight, it was church.

She’s a baddie, Taylor agreed.

Tonight, the students were having their annual showcase. We needn’t go into the details. You’re this far, you get the picture.

But before gaining entry, everyone first needed to return their borrowed books. You couldn’t come or go without checking out a book from Deb. And so, upon gaining admittance through the sentinel metal detectors, everyone pushed their books through the slot, listening for the thud in the bin on the other side before breathing again. Before hurrying up to wait for the showcase to start. They had to wait until everyone was present and had returned every last book, you see. And so they would, wait and see, again tonight.

Rumor had it, one time they pulled a professor’s wife, Helena, out of the shower to come, and she arrived with ropes of dripping wet brown hair and red cheeks, apologizing to everyone for forgetting what day it was. Taylor protested the rumor as “too wild to be true!” Nonetheless, she whispered, big-eyed and breathily, repeating it more than any of the other students. Calla wrote a flash piece about the rumor, eroticizing the wife. The professor had mixed feelings about the story, as always.

In the Library, the back room was already full. The one where during the day local kids pressed flowers for bookmarks or made mosaics with archaic shattered encyclopedia DVDs, and at night locals rented it out for affordable gatherings, like poetry readings or accolades, like book tours or engagement parties. The guests would open the room’s french doors onto the back deck overlooking miles of fields. There was a firepit smack dab center before the deck’s railing, before guests might topple over into the endless fields swallowing this town, everyone overflowing between and beyond the stacks. Some guests took off their jackets, took a seat, opened a new book, or small-talked with their neighbor, perhaps. Most guests waited at attention with eyes on Deb, looking towards the door for the very last arrivals.

At 6:10pm nearly everyone was here, but—his classmates noticed—Amos wasn’t. Within seconds of the penultimate, profusely apologizing arrival at 6:12 of Gray’s landlord (a big sci-fi reader), Amos’s profile appeared in the darkening horizon, running beneath the sinking sun as if chasing a departing bus. And with that, everyone had been spared another year of learning if rumors were true, if someone would be sent to fetch him, sopping wet or who knows what.

The metal detectors permitted his late admittance, as he slowed upon approaching Deb’s throne, his stubbled face red and inflating, deflating.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I was lost in such a state of flow! I had a breakthrough about my ending,” Amos panted, holding his book up for all to see, searching the crowd wildly for his professor mentor, Hutchins. As Amos’s book thudded into the bin, you could hear a bookmark scrap a page, it was so quiet throughout the Library, save for Amos’s beating heart, escaping out his open mouth. He made a small prayer gesture towards Deb, adjusted his hat, and melted into the crowd.

The mayor, Mr. Winters (an impressive reader, but a poor writer himself, thus his public service position), rose from his seat behind the Front Desk, behind Deb’s throne. Deb looked up at the mayor, nodding.

“Everyone has checked their books in already, we may begin,” the Mayor declared.

Two of Deb’s staff members rolled the heavy bin full of books towards the Front Desk. The Mayor started picking up the books, opening and reading from the cards enveloped inside, calling out their names, then stacking the books into neat piles of ten along the front desk, near Deb’s station. Everyone listened for their titles. Taylor made a few hushed comments to those in her perimeter. Calla nodded, seeming bored. And Amos tried to shuffle towards Professor Hutchins, leaning against the shelves of periodicals.

“She was already dead. I finally cracked it, Hutchins!” Amos whispered, his breath blowing his professor’s silver hair.

“Shhh,” came from the newspapers and magazines all around.

“Not now, son. Not now,” Hutchins managed through closed teeth, silently patting Amos on the shoulder. Amos, impatient and excited, exhaled, then made eyes with Calla, shrugging and winking. She nodded again, mythically, Amos imagined, and then realized she was, in fact, gesturing for him to zip his fly.

Mayor Winters reached his hand into the bin of books until he couldn’t touch the bottom without standing on his tippy toes, at which point the two, taller and younger staff members bent and stretched effortlessly toward the bottom, pulling up the last of the borrowed books for the Mayor’s easier reach.

Mayor Winters called out the last book (Dracula, some whispered, shaking their heads), and then asked aloud, “Are we missing anyone? Or any books?”

No one said a thing, meaning, no. It had been thorough.

It was nearly time.

“Very well then, let’s allow Deborah here to proceed, and then the showcase will begin right after. Thank you, Deborah,” Mayor Winters said, taking a symbolic step back.

It was a full moon, tonight, and already beaming bright overhead. Even as everything else outside grew dark and still and quiet, the skylight was still spotlighting Deb.

Deb slowly lifted her hands, reaching for her barcode scanner with one, the first book from the nearest stack of ten near her with the other. Everyone watched Deb and her red nails, peeking out between the stacks.

The first book’s barcode was scanned. Nobody could see Deb’s monitor, but the beep let out was all the assurance they needed. As she scanned each pile down to nothing, her staff quietly scooted fresh stacks across the wood-top desk. The entire activity a ballet. Deb’s desk the stage; her the prima pointing with purpose; her staff danseurs, lifting and lowering with measured, fluid precision.

Beep.

The audience, watching breathlessly.

Beep.

The particles dancing above Deb’s halo contained bits of everyone in here now. They were all one now.

Suddenly, one of the books in some middle of her thinning stacks didn’t emit “here” when called for roll. The library’s air thinned.

Deb looked at Mayor Winters, and then attempted to scan the book again.

No beep. Everyone knew better than to make a sound, or ask what they were dying to know.

“Now folks, remember, we have to finish scanning all the books here, so let’s be patient, please,” Mayor Winters reminded his townspeople, fulfilling his promises with his even tone and calm demeanor, his practiced hand gestures.

Deb kept reaching and scanning, saying nothing. She was their star, commanding the silence.

Beep.

As the last remaining stack of books was glissaded towards the finale, some folks started fidgeting. Whispering. Shhhushing themselves. Taylor stretched, and Ernie closed his heavy eyes.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

All the last books scanned successfully. There had only been the one that didn’t.

Mayor Winters moved forward again near Deb. She opened the book, removing the card from its inner jacket, showing him what it said.

Even if the crowd couldn’t see the stamped print or cover pressed against the desktop, they could see the card as she held it up. It had been a beloved book, for its card was stamp-smattered in both columns, full of ink and past due dates. A few whispered, “That’s MacBeth.” One said, “That a Shirley Jackson one?” And got swatted in the stomach.

Deb, unblinking, ripped the card, and said quietly, “David Amos.”

The once-still crowd suddenly surged in the room, everything shuffling and loud as quiet-libraries get. Some were gasping, a few clapping or hugging, everyone letting out emotion for the first time in the past half hour.

“Wait, no!” Amos cried, ripping his hat off his head and combing his sweaty hair, the bounce of his overgrown haircut springing frantically. He’d been too consumed with writing, you see, to bother with the barbershop, and what have you.

“David Amos, please come with us now,” Mayor Winters said, in almost a singsong, politically insincere way, as mayors are wont to do during, say, a wildfire, asking residents to stay calm and drive safely while evacuating their crumbling, molten lives.

“No, it can’t be, it has to be a mistake, tonight of all nights, I was just saying I finally had a breakthrough!” Amos tried again.

“This way please,” Mayor Winters said. The crowd parted, establishing an opening towards the mayor and then, towards the back room. Someone had already opened the french doors, and the breeze was blowing into the room from the deck and fields beyond. A refreshing zephyr, for many.

“Hutchins, please! I wanted to talk to you about this,” Amos pleaded. He was then being taken through the crowd by Deb’s two staff members turned ushers. As Amos resisted being escorted onward, everyone began crumpling their showcase invitations they’d been holding onto, then heading towards the back room too, forming a current of bodies.

They pulled him through Fiction.

Amos felt lightheaded. He began trying more physically—more desperately—to resist. The ushers held him tighter.

They pulled him through World History.

“It’s okay Amos! This is part of the program! We love you!” Taylor called out, then went back to being quiet with the others, hidden in parallel stacks. Gray with his furrowed brow, and Calla, almost smirking.

Amos tried to reach out for the shelves to stop himself from being taken, but the ushers only yanked him harder. A couple times Amos’s grip felled tomes from the Self-Help shelves, and another citizen placed them back, dutifully reshelving.

Once in the back room, there were no more stacks or shelves for Amos to grasp; the labyrinth had reached its end.

Amos was led out onto the back deck, and the Mayor lifted the corten steel lid off of the firepit.

Suddenly, the pit became engulfed in flames.

A couple of students nearby tossed their crumpled leaves into the pit first, then sighed and made room for others.

“David Amos, thank you for participating in our writing program here,” Mayor Winters said, as he’d said on this day every year, every showcase. Everyone knew what he said next. “It has been our pleasure to have you, and we appreciate the sacrifice you make, for all of us, tonight.”

“No please, please don’t do this! This is my entire life,” Amos began weeping, his body caving in on itself to his fallen knees, his tears reflecting the golden glow of the flame before him. The fire was growing bigger and brighter and hotter, as everyone tossed their crumpled balls of the showcase invitation into the pit, making room for more and more to do the same.

Deb emerged and all allowed her to approach Amos, now cowering beneath her. Her eyes turned golden green in the flame’s light, looking down at him. “Mr. Amos, your work is being taken out of circulation, and will be permanently erased in its entirety. Please, proceed for deletion.” She didn’t need to remind him to be quiet. He knew. They all knew.

Amos sniffled, and as the ushers lifted him back to standing, he tried one last time to look towards his friends, those with whom he’d been sharing his every day and every intimate thought throughout the program, all in the interest of producing the best writers the world had ever seen. They’d shared drafts together in campus workshops and divy bars, gotten high and listened to music, ignited paranoia by triggering plagiarism concerns given the frequency illusion. They’d slept with each other, red-lined each other, and inspired each other. But they’d never talked about this.

Amos caught Gray’s eye contact first. And then Ernie’s.

“It is time, Amos,” Gray said, matter of factly, nudging his friend towards what had become a wild, controlled fire.

“No Gray! Ernie, man, Ernie! Please?” Amos whimpered, his feet almost touching the fire.

“Amos?” Ernie began, putting his hand on Amos’s back with all the others, applying pressure.

“Don’t say it, man,” Amos said, turning towards Ernie, resisting the fire that was causing his skin to perspire, his shoes’ soles to melt.

“You knew the definition of this program, Amos. Some things are best left off the page.”

And with that, Amos was taken out of circulation, his work never to be seen or heard from again.