The Library of the Passing

He wanted them to be there when he passed away, but their lives had gotten in the way. He didn’t blame them. They all had interesting lives, loving partners to come home to, children growing up too fast, and trips abroad. All of it seemed more important than some dying old man.

When the machine was turned off and the last of the momentum carrying his blood finally stopped, Mitch and the room fell still.

Then the Curator woke him, and Mitch found himself in the Library of the Passing.

He slowly stood. The Curator was tall and dressed in a well-tailored suit and tie. They bent over, stretching their neck down to speak to him.

“Welcome. We understand this may be difficult to comprehend, but you are dead.”

Mitch nodded at the face towering above him.

“Do you know why you are here?” The Curator smiled.

“I’m dead,” Mitch said.

“Yes, you are. You have been brought here for your transition to the Other Place.” They opened a large notebook.

Mitch went to the railing at the centre of the room to get his bearings. The Curator was busy searching through the book, leaving him to look around.

He stood in a large hexagonal room. Each wall held three floor to ceiling bookshelves, eighteen in total. He leant over the railing and looked down. The room below was exactly the same, and below that another, and another, until he could no longer see the bottom. It was the same in every direction he looked, an endless honeycomb of rooms and bookshelves stretching out as far as he could see.

“There you are.” The Curator snapped the book shut.

Suddenly everything flicked out of place. The Library warped and rushed past them. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.

Mitch stumbled forward and collapsed onto the floor, breathing hard.

“Don’t worry. That won’t happen again.”

The Curator crouched before him and stretched out a large hand. Resting in the palm was a small paper ticket.

“Well done, Mitch. You’ve managed to become a ticket holder. Please, take it.”

Mitch slowly took it.

The paper was yellow, like dead grass, and embossed around the edges with red swirls. Punched into one corner were the numbers 72.93.23.35.

“What’s this?” Mitch said.

“It’s your ticket. Count yourself lucky. Most people don’t get one.” The Curator stood and walked away.

They slid one of the leather-bound books from a shelf and carefully placed it on Mitch’s lap.

“Open it.” Their smile widened.

Mitch cracked it open and flipped through a few pages.

“Careful, Mitch. The person searching for that doesn’t want it ruined.”

The smile vanished.

Mitch read a few lines aloud, just to make sure they were real.

“Betty had fallen over, scraping her knee raw. Her mother would be the first to comfort her, leading to her subconscious preference for her mother and Betty’s dislike of blood. Mum would put the plaster on too tight.”

He closed the book.

“What is this?”

“That is the book of Betty James Patrick, born in 1919 and deceased in 1988 in Iowa, USA. She arrived in the Library on April 3rd and has been searching for that book for fifty years. She is nowhere near it.”

The Curator sounded almost mournful.

They led Mitch to the railing and gestured to the endless mass before them.

“This is the Library of the Passing. Every person who has ever lived has a book here, containing every fact of their life. You must find yours and discover the answer to the question that plagued you in life. Do that, and you may move on to the Other Place.”

The Curator took the book from his hands and returned it carefully to the shelf.

“So, Mitch, what question do you need answered?”

Mitch paused. The answer that came to him surprised him.

“Why did I die alone?” he said.

“A fine question.”

The Curator left shortly after. Fading away into the paper and walls of the library. Leaving him with one last piece of information. Don’t lose your ticket or allow anyone else to take it from you. There are others in the Library who desire such things. He was confused at what The Curatour could have meant, others he thought, could I really find someone else in such an endless place.

There was no way for him to tell time in the Library. No matter where you went or how you covered yourself it was always bright enough to comfortably read a book. It made sleep impossible if the need ever came. But it never did. It was one of the strange things Mitch had to come to terms with quickly while traveling the rooms of this place. He had no need for sleep, to eat, no thrust, or desire to defecate. It’s what he thought being a ghost must be like. It was a familiar feeling for some reason he could not place.

He had travelled from what must have been days before he noticed how his ticket was doing. The ticket was in his pocket when he felt it tug for the first time, he took it out and watched as he made a couple steps. It remained still. Until he turned gentle on his heel causing the ticket to suddenly jolt itself across his palm. Mitch grabbed the ticket by one of its corners and slowly let him pull and tug him in the duration it wanted him to go. The excitement of finally knowing where to head was there of course but he could not stop dragging his feet. What if the answer was worse than the question? He continued through the endless library, haunting the strange place.

The travel wasn’t the worst part of the Library, not even its labyrinth nature worried Mitch. Boredom. Boredom was the worst part. Without the need for sleep or the feeling of exhaustion there was nothing to keep himself occupied. So eventually he started reading the books. It felt wrong to violate the private thoughts and lives of people who couldn’t defend themselves or scream at him to stop. He did try and stop. The first book he carefully slid off the shelf and cradled in his arms was about John Goldstein. It was about the time he learnt to ride a bike with his dad. Even after John had fallen over and given up learning his dad still took him to the ice cream parlor and still told him he loved him and how proud he was that John kept trying till it went dark. It made him think about the times his sons learnt to ride his bikes without him. Mitch was always busy and struggled to make time but the boys learnt in the end. . He read a couple pages before putting it back on the shelf. Mitch was embarrassed after reading the book.

After his first attempt to read a book, he continued on through the Library, the travel was enough for the time but the temptation grew. He stopped one day, the ticket in his hands tugging and pulling at him to move on, he turned his head to the bookshelf next to him. A large green leather bound book was in front of him. He didn’t feel his hand reach for the book. All he knew was that he’d suddenly sheltered himself into one of the many corners of the room and was looking at the books front cover. He slowly stroked the leather of the book feeling a rush come over him that almost felt like a thrill. Then he opened the page. It was a book about a man named James Foster. Most of it was dull and mirrored his own life in parts. Until the section where he had his first kiss.

James was Twenty eight years old. He was a little old to be having a first kiss, he knew. It worried him a lot, felt that time was running out for him. Lu and him had known each other for years. It still surprised him when she pulled him in for their first kiss. He worried if he was doing the right things, if she was enjoying it, did she really want this or was she just doing this on a dare. Those thoughts faded when she looked at him with her quiet little smile. It felt like she was keeping it all a secret for the two of them. And when they kissed again all he ever wanted to do for the rest of his life was kiss her. Mitch read on. James and Lu would marry and have three children and would die only an hour apart from one another having loved each other 65 years. When he closed the book. He remembered his marriage. He kissed her the first time because he was supposed to, they married because they were expected to, they had children because they were asked to. He wanted to name his sons at least. Mitch took great care when naming them. Spending hours debating what to call them. His wife had made fun of him for asking newborns if they liked the name he’d given them. But it felt like the first gift was going to be given them, he couldn’t just pick anyone.

The sudden jolt of memory, the satisfaction at understanding a small part of himself because of another struggle was a marva. And he wanted more. He began searching the library every chance he had for any book that could get him closer to understanding himself. He’d travel until the desire to experience another's life came over him and then he’d stop browse a couple volumes and find the one that mirrored his own life, and read it front to cover. Most of the time he stayed standing. It made it easier to get back to the journey when he’d finished the book. A lot of the stories and the people were the same. They all spent so much of their time worrying about what others thought of them and how they came across in conversations. They worried if they were pretty enough or happy in their lives. And they all wondered if they deserved more. Whilst he read the ticket in his pocket would tug at him, almost desperately to press on. When he finished he’d slid it back into the shelf and continued with the travels.

Often, the thrill of reading about another person's life would fade away quickly and he would forget a lot of what he’d read. But sometimes when he walked passing the countless lifetimes that surrounded him on the shelves. A scene, maybe a chapter or even a single word would come to him as he trudged. He thought of Mary Fearson and her struggles with her mother passing. The years she spent as her care giver. The constant bed sores, the pain and what was her reward for taking care of her. Slowly watching herself become a stranger. She had hated being there at the end watching her mother pass on. He was glad he thought that his children weren’t there for him.

When he entered the next room and found a book on the floor. He picked it up and looked it over. It was a dark blue paper back with a rough surface. As he turned it over in his hands he saw that one of the book's corners was bent inwards, like it had been thrown at the wall. He gently walked around the room and found the missing slot belonging to the book. The book was a simple life of an Irish man who lived and died in the same village he was born in and loved the same man he’d done as a boy. He slid the book back carefully, fitting it into the slot perfectly. He searched the room again looking for anyone's story left out of place when he found it lying in the doorway. A loose page torn from it’s binding. He stepped forward picking the page up off the floor. He read it quickly. It was about a girl trying to eat her peas during meal time and hating every second of it.There green it looks like snot. I don’t eat snot. He couldn’t help but smile at the page the girl reminded him of his kids. He stepped through the doorway hoping to find the book the page belong to but was horrified to see a trail of torn pages ahead of him. He bent to his knees.

‘Who would do such a thing?’

Mitch began to pick them up the pages scattered on the floor but stopped. The ticket was frantically pulling at him to go in the opposite direction then the trail of pages. He stood up and thought about the girl and her peas, he felt that if it was his child's book torn and left ruined in the liberty he’d want someone to fix it for him. Mitch ignored the tugging in his pocket and moved forward following the trail of pages.

He followed the trail of torn page collecting each one as he went. The pages themselves told a story of someone frantically tearing and ripping at the book as they went. Were they leaving themselves a guide. Mitch thought. He collected them carefully making sure to fix them as best as he could before adding them to his collection. Some were torn in half, others balled up tight need to be unfollowed and flattened before he could move on to the next. The pile of papers had grown quite large and he needed to hold it close to his chest to move comfortably. He felt the changes in the library. The further he went on the rooms grew chaotic and messy. Bookshelves were empty and the books were battered, scratched and scattered in random piles throughout the room. The trail ended at a wall of books with a doorway. He stepped through and saw him crouched in front of him. A young man in his twenties maybe had his noise in his book, he was dressed strange like something Mitch would wear was he was that age.

The young man stood up slowly and walked towards him. Mitch froze thinking the boy would attack him but he didn’t. He floated past him and wandered aimlessly to another book on the floor. Mitch watched him as grabbed the book, read it, grabbed a page and wander passed him again to his hovel. There the young man tried to hammer the page into a book trying to fit it into the book. How long must I have been doing this? Mitich thought. How long has been here losing his mind to the place and how long did Mitch have himself before he lost his soul to the books of this place. Mitch stepped forward and sat next to the young man.

He took the bundle of pages he’d collected and offered it to the young man in front of him. They looked confused.

‘Try these’

The boy took them from Mitch’s hand and carefully put them in the book. He watched him read it and saw the boy coming to the end of something that had kept him here.

‘I thought she loved me’ The boy's voice cracked.

Mitched placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and forced a smile like he’d done so many times with his kids. The Boy faded away and Mitch’s hand fell to the floor. He picked up the boy's book and slid into place. He stood in the centre of the room looking over the piles of books, the mess of one man’s lifetime in this place. The tugging in his pocket had grown unbearable. He took the ticket out and watched it pull him forwards.

He didn’t know how long he’d traveled or how many rooms he passed through and the countless books he could have read in that time, it didn’t matter. The ticket was taking him where he needed to go. And the tugging stopped. He looked up and saw the small brass panel, with the numbers 72.93.23.35 etched onto it. The ticket turned to ash in his hands and blew away. His book was small and squat with soft brown leather wrapped around it. With a shaking hand he reached out for it. The book was heavy in his hands and it took him forever to crack open the front cover. He feared he knew what was ahead of him, a sad story about a man who pushed everyone away. Who’s children hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. He knew why he died alone. And then he read.

He found a man who spent too much time in his head. Who loved them in his own way. The man who hated fuss and disliked celebrating his own birthday but liked to do so for others. Man man favourite fraze was, Don’t worry I’ll manage. A man who made his children belive that watching him die would be the last thing he wanted. Which it was. But he’d robbed his children the chance for them to say goodbye And having finished his book and saw his life fully head done the most selfish thing he could. He’d died alone.