FOMO

CW: Contains sexual content, mild gore, strong language and themes of mental health.

I’m only mildly surprised to find the quaint National Library crowded on the 1st of January; Fikiriki warned me that many people's New Year's resolutions would revolve around reading: reading more books, reading more quality books, or learning new skills through books.

Self-yelp has become very popular these days, he says, but one should know better than to waste time on such crap.

Fikiriki taught me that every book worth reading must either pass the Test of time — be at least 50 years old and still relevant — or the Test of Nobility — have an author who is either a Nobel or Pulitzer Prize winner.

I smile inwardly, pushing my way through the throng in the lobby, knowing most of the people around me will give up reading before February.

Reading is a very subtle skill, appreciated by everyone, but practiced by only a few. It's definitely not for everyone, as my fellow YouTubers like to sell it.

Many people want to read popular science books, just so they can parade the cheap trivia they pick up from them.

Fikiriki calls them the Quizzers.

Then there are the Bounty Hunters, who plan to read a book A WEEK and, by the end of the year, become a greater entrepreneur than Bill Gates and Steve Jobs combined, having distilled the best advice from both into an “original” strategy that will make them part of the infamous 1%.

Fikiriki says their reading challenge won't survive the January snow.

The Psychology department is filled with the Helpless, folks whom the real-life marketers have deluded into believing their next book will finally teach them how to find a partner or how to dump one; how to be happy on their own and how to build significant relationships; how to mindfully spend more time in the present, surpass their FOMO and read less crap, this book excluded.

My spirits lift as I join my fellow fiction readers, or, as I (and Fikiriki) like to call them, readers.

However, even many of our sort have lost their way nowadays, reading the umpteenth addition to the Sanderson’s multiverse, the same-as-the-last Coleen Hoover chick-flick, or the newest Hunger Games prequel sequel.

What’s worse, many get tragically stuck in the so-called fan-fiction, which is, according to Fikiriki (and me), the most sacrilegious genre of all.

Some even read fan fiction based on other people’s fan fiction, generations removed from the original, which is usually crap itself.

Not that I've read any of that, but as Dylan delicately put it: “You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”.

I move into the next department. My lungs expand as I trade the suffocating cloyness of the twenty-first century for the nostalgic scent of the twentieth—overproduction and plagiarism giving way to style and invention.

It smells even better than FIkiriki described it — it smells of cinnamon.

I rush to the Department of Irish Literature to fulfil the objective of my quest.

The Gods from Heaven descend

My soul, heart, and brain rejoice

As I lay my humble hand

on the masterpiece of James—

As I pull it from the shelf, the volume collapses on my foot.

Ouuuuuch!!!

Grasping my foot, I skip around the shelves until the throbbing pain in my big toe subsides.

The librarian gives me a puzzled look.

I smile at him apologetically. All’s fine, sir.

As he returns to his book, I carefully pick the corpus delicti from the floor.

The bloody thing weighs at least ten pounds!

When Fikiriki said Joyce was heavy literature, I didn’t think he meant it literally.

Doesn’t the whole plot happen within 24 hours? And isn’t art supposed to condense time, not expand it — like when you watch Harry Potter’s school year in two hours, or Forrest Gump’s entire life in three? Why the fuck would I spend months reading about some guy's single day?

It had better be one hell of a day.

I open the book at random, and almost drop it again as the swarm of letters flies into my eyes.

What is this font size? 9?

And there isn't a single paragraph break!

I can’t find a single full stop either — this ginormous two-page chunk of text is part of a single sentence!

What the fuck?

I snap the book shut and lift its ten pounds back on the shelf.

I’m about to cross Ulysses off my reading list when it occurs to me that I’m being too impulsive. Didn't Fikiriki say that Ulysses was based upon some older book? Perhaps you can’t read it until you’ve read the prequel, like you can’t tackle algebra before mastering arithmetic.

After a short consultation with Google and the library map, I head over to the Department of Ancient Literature and locate the original.

Homer, The Odyssey.

Now that's what you call a reasonable read: a paperback edition, less than 200 pages, with a font size of at least 14.

It’s even written in verses, so half the space is blank!

I'm about to kiss it down the middle when I notice the words. I don't recognize half of them, and the other half are some weird names.

Further Googling reveals that The Odyssey is also a sequel. I double-check that its prequel has no other prequels before pulling it off the shelf.

This is it now, the very origin of Joyce’s masterpiece, where everything is explained in a friendly language for beginners like myself.

I open the first page.

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, (Who is Peleus?)

that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. (Achaeans?)

Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, (Where to?)

and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, (?!?!?)

for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled— (WHO THE FUCK IS JOVE???)

This is it! I’ve had enough!

If this is the original, then the whole franchise was hopeless from the start!

I tuck The Iliad on the bottom shelf in the Yugoslavian Literature Department, where no one will ever find it (for who the fuck reads Yugoslavian literature?), steal the pen from the librarian’s desk, and cross Ulysses off the list.

After taking a lunch break at the cafeteria — stuffing myself full of lasagna to soothe my nerves — I head to the French department for my next book.

This one looks promising. The author lets you know straight from the title that he won't mess around with your time. A forthright man who gets straight to the point, calls a spade a spade without unnecessary embellishment—

I stop dead in front of the shelf. There can be no mistake: this is the right shelf, for my book occupies its entire length.

From edge to edge.

In Search of Lost Time spans no fewer than seven volumes, each over 500 pages!

Well, even if the dude didn’t find his lost time, he certainly manufactured plenty of it writing these 3000+ pages, so the whole search was quite pointless. As I'm really not a fan of novels with no literary tension, I immediately cross Proust off the list.

My next station is the Russian department.

But my luck serves me no better here. The length of the first Dostoyevski’s novel on the list makes its reading seem like a criminal punishment, and I cross the other one because I prefer protagonists with an IQ higher than mine, so I could learn something from them. I consider borrowing his only novel with fewer than 500 pages, but decide against it — since it's not on Fikiriki’s list, it would be too big a gamble. Lolita seems attractive at first glance, until I open it to find paragraphs that make me regurgitate my lasagna.

I'm in the English department on the 4th floor, trying to decide whether Dickens’s 400-page Oliver is worth the twist, when a librarian approaches me.

“We’re closing in ten minutes,” he says. “Do you need any help?”

Yeah, right, who from? You?

I shake my head, and he walks away.

There is only one entry left on my list — my final hope.

I am flicking through Austin’s novel, wondering if it’s sensible to expose my senses to its contents when the lights go out.

Shit.

“Hello!” I yell into the total darkness. “I’m still here.”

No response.

Now what?

Switching on my phone’s torch, I slowly move down the corridor toward the elevator. The library has a spooky, eerie vibe in the dark; I feel as if millennia of classic literature are judging me as I pass them by.

I reach the gallery with the elevators, and my view falls upon the empty lobby downstairs. The National Library's logo, engraved into the marble floor, is barely visible under the streetlight from the outside, while the rest is engulfed in darkness.

Except for—-

There is a dim light coming from a small chamber on the third floor of the Western Wing. I'm just about to call the elevator when the light flickers, and a dark silhouette passes in front of it.

Holy fuck!

I switch off the torch.

Have they seen me?

A wave of terror rises in my chest.

I have no idea what they might do to me if they find me here. Does staying past working hours count as breaking and entering? And doesn’t the National Library contain some classified documents? Will they treat this as another Watergate attempt and condemn me for conspiracy to commit treason, punishable by death?

I don’t plan on staying long enough to find out.

I press the elevator button, but it doesn't light up.

Fuck!

Afraid of switching on the torch again, I feel my way along the shelves toward the staircase.

I press the metal doorknob, but the door doesn’t budge.

Fuck, fuck!

I dash toward the emergency exit, vaguely remembering the green neon signs from earlier. Overwhelmed by panic, I ricochet off the shelves, books flying everywhere in my wake.

The fire escape is locked too!

Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

I crumble to the floor and lie there in silence until my heartbeat returns to normal.

Then I start to cry.

Why did you even come here? My conscience scolds me.

I came to find myself a gripping story, one I could enjoy late in bed with a cup of hot chocolate in my lap; to ride the rollercoaster of a thrilling adventure in which a Hero conquers the Demons both outside and within himself to fulfill his dangerous mission and become a better man, thus making me a happier, braver, and more empathetic human being in return.

Isn’t that what stories are for? Weren’t all the stories that you’ve ever enjoyed just like that? Why bother with Fikiriki’s high literature when you know it isn’t for you? You are into gripping thrillers, not lengthy dramas. And that’s okay.

I know, I know, I was being stupid.

My sobbing slowly dies away.

Then a thought hits me like a freight train.

Am I not part of a gripping thriller right now?

The boring Exposition is through, the Rising action came with the darkness, and I have now reached the Climax with the twist, which makes me… the story’s Hero!

And no Hero should be passively lying in the darkness, mourning his own fate like this. The real Hero would face the threat head-on, leading the story to the Falling action and the eventual Resolution.

I pat my pockets, but they’re empty. I must have dropped my phone during my frenetic run.

Doesn’t matter — only adds to the dramatic tension.

I get up and return to the gallery, finding my way back by the books I’ve dislodged along the way, like Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs.

I put on my hood and roll up my sleeves to feel more like a vigilante, then climb onto the wooden handrail at the gallery’s corner and jump into the darkness.

I imagined gripping the opposite balustrade’s handrail with one hand, swaying over the abyss as I climbed over it like in an action movie—but the gap was so small that I landed on the rail with my back and slid down onto the third-floor carpet.

Ouuuuchhh! My ass!

The light is still on in the Western Wing, and the silhouette is still there. As I move closer — my heart threatening to jump out of my chest — I can see it sitting behind a desk, writing something.

I am about to knock on the door when a female voice from inside says, “Come in, Marty.”

For a moment, I wonder how she knows my name, but then I remember that everyone in the story knows the Hero's name.

The door creaks loudly as I push it inward.

I step into a small chamber, its floor littered with piles of books. Each pile is of a different height, but all are topped by a burning candle.

A perfect setting for the Falling action scene. I can already imagine one of the candles toppling and starting a huge fire that will consume the entire library as the story's dramatic Resolution.

In the center of the room sits a ginger-headed Japanese woman in a black kimono, scribbling on a piece of paper, using a pile of hardcovers as her desk.

Without raising her head, she points to a paperback “stool”. “Sit.”

I comply without a word. That’s what Hero always does when meeting the Resolution character.

“Pick one,” she says, her gaze still lowered.

It's pretty hard to attribute any ambiguity to the word “one” in these surroundings, so I start digging through the piles around me.

How I lost weight in 12 weeks. Self-yelp. Pihhhh.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Darth Maul. Fan-fiction. And a comic book. My Enlightened self is intrigued, but My Hero says, double Pih, for the sake of the story.

I pretend to keep digging for a couple more minutes, feigning disappointment.

“Found anything?”

“Well, it’s all crap.” I lie.

“How can you tell if you haven’t read it?”

“‘You don't have to be a weatherman—-’”

“‘----to know which way the wind blows’” She finally looks up at me and rolls her eyes. “You really gonna quote that moron Fikiriki quoting Dylan to me?”

I feign speechlessness.

“Besides, you at least have to know what wind is—”

I know a Hero should be patient, but I got bored with this chit-chat.

“Listen, woman—”

“My name is Sikiriki.”

“Listen, Sikiriki, I've already learned the moral of this story: how life is a journey, and not a destination, and that I should rather listen to my heart than some random snobbish YouTuber.”

As I list the story's lessons, Sikiriki crosses them off her list.

“Have you realised that reading is for everyone, if they find a suitable genre?”

“Yup.”

“And that your favorite genres are the adventure novels and the infamous fan fiction?”

“Check.”

Sikiriki purses her lips; her role of the Moral Deliverer dwindles with each cross-out.

“Which leaves us only with,” she says anxiously, “the conquering of your FOMO.”

“Oh, I’ve covered that too,” I say proudly. “Life is too short to be spent bemoaning the bad things we won’t read.”

I expect Sikiriki to make another cross-out, but instead she raises her pen in triumph.

“Huh!” she exclaims. “Seems my role isn't useless after all!”

“What do you mean? But I've mastered my FOMO!”

“FOMO stands for Fear of Making Out.”

“No, it does not.”

“Shut up! I am the Story Architect, and you are just a Hero playing by my rules. FOMO means whatever I want it to mean!”

“Fine,” I roll my eyes. “How do I conquer FOMO and finish this tale in a happy-ever-after?”

“Well, we first need to see if you have FOMO”, she says, anxiety back on her face. “Did you ever have a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“A boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

“No-strings-attached cuddling?”

“None.”

Sikiriki smiles slyly. “Then you still have FOMO, my young hero.”

My eye-muscles hurt from the circular motion. “Fine, and what do we do about it?”

“You need to realize that you binge-read enormous amounts of fanfic only to suppress your need for human touch, which scares you because of your attachment issues stemming from your early childhood, when your mother's unstable mood swings made you distrustful of everyone, afraid they would abandon you if you reached out for them.”

“Fine, fine, fine. And how do we do that?”

Sikiriki undresses her kimono. “By having sex, of course.”

The sight of her bare breasts makes me stagger backwards, and I knock into a pile of books, toppling the candle on top of it. The whole room bursts into flames, and a huge part of me is happy that I got the ending I wanted.

But then the sprinklers on the ceiling activate and extinguish the fire within seconds, making everything in the chamber, from books to us, soaking wet.

The cold makes me shiver, and I reflexively undress my T-shirt. Before I know it, her hands are on my shoulders, her lips dangerously close to mine.

I pull away, but my foot slips on wet paper, sending us both to the ground, her on top.

Our lips finally connect, and her tongue enters my mouth, cleaning the lasagna chunks from between my teeth like dental floss. She strokes my biceps while my hands run gently down her ginger curls.

But the real magic happens only when she removes my wet underpants, and soon the books are smeared with more than just sprinkler water.

When we are done, I fetch the miraculously dry Revenge of the Darth Maul, and dive into Obi-Wan’s adventures in a galaxy far, far away, Sikiriki’s naked body still entwined with mine.