Ash and Oxygen

The smell of burning pages is engulfing the small room. I watch as the embers spark, smolder, and overwhelm another corner of the thick book. Is that the book? Can I hear it now? It sounds like both a sigh of relief and a scream of agony, at the same time. Have I done the right thing? Is this the only way? 

I can taste the bitter ash from the book, it's in my nose, my mouth, my throat too, although I shouldn't be able to taste it. Stop, it’s done now. It can't be undone. I just need this to stop. I try to shake myself out of the doubt. A single bead of sweat runs down my temple. Watching the flames I think of how simple my day had been just a few hours ago. 

“How long should I be trapped in this godforsaken room, without any ventilation? I swear the artifacts get better treatment than I do.” Keyla whined under her breath. She had been slammed with an inordinate amount of cataloging, on a weekend. A rich benefactor had passed. He had bequeathed the museum his entire collection of rare books. Generally, this would have been Keyla’s dream, the collection was well worth her time and expertise. She was obsessed with old literature. She loved her job just as much as she loved her cat, Golden. However, this particular weekend was notable, the last two days of Comic-Con. She hadn't missed a single year since she started, when she was seventeen. She loved comics and rare manuscripts with an equal passion. To her, they were the two sides of the same coin. 

She gently unfolded another page of the book she was documenting digitally. The book lay inside an anoxic chamber and could only be handled through the glove ports. The chamber was devoid of any oxygen at all and filled with nitrogen instead. Keyla had appreciated the previous owner’s attention to detail, he had truly cared for his collection. This book had been in an anoxic display case, in a temperature controlled environment, without any direct sunlight! The perfect trifecta to preserve a book this old. 

Speaking of old, she needed to run another Spectroscopy scan on the ink and pages of the book. The first one had been puzzlingly inconclusive. It said the book was made of unknown materials. She couldn’t date it without that, she wouldn't even be able to specify that it even belonged to a certain era. It wasn’t possible. Unless, maybe it was a fake? she sighed 

Keyla took a deep breath, she had finally finished the digital documentation, completed another inconclusive spectrograph and decided to just take a break while she waited for her colleague to help her decode how old the book was. By now, Keyla was convinced that she was somehow doing the test wrong. How could there not be a single recognizable element? She looked at her watch, frowned sadly and said “Guess it’s too late for Comic-Con?”

She stepped into the cafe down the street from the museum archive building. That first whiff, it filled her up with hunger and the smell of baking bread. “I’ll get my usual, thank you,” She smiled at her server. 

She had brought her laptop with her, she hoped that reading the text might give her some more clues. She had studied comparative linguistics, hoping for exactly this situation after all. Keyla set her tea down and opened up the digital file; she had already applied some digital filters to make the fading text appear more clear. She began reading. She laughed, Am I reading this right? 

The book read like a five-year-old's brain. She had a hard time keeping up with the shifting themes, constantly wondering if there even was a plot or an arc, or even a character at all. It was like the author had strung together arbitrary sentences just to see if she would be able to keep up. Every page began with a completely different structure. Apart from that, there were no obvious linguistic patterns or comparable characteristics at all in the book. She was intrigued, Why was this book considered rare? What did the author hope to achieve? Could she date it by syntax and vocabulary? and with that thought, she pushed through. Simply trying to absorb as much of the book as possible. She would have to read it again and keep notes in the next round. 

The lines of the world around her hazed and blurred. She didn't know how long it had been. Keyla felt like she was being drawn into the book, and not in the way a good book does. Physically, she felt her body move closer, being drawn in. All the while reading and absorbing, she was incapable of breaking free or looking away. Keyla panicked, she could taste the metallic fear and adrenaline in the back of her mouth. She tried to draw herself away and look at anything outside the book, but it just wouldn't let her. Her hand moved of its own accord, clicking the button to turn the page without her thought or permission. She was frozen in place, panicking, struggling against the will of the book, and still reading and absorbing every word. Finally, as she reached the climax of the book, she begged for it to end. She lurched herself away and the book released her at the same time, the release was so powerful she slammed into the floor. 

“Keyla, are you okay?” Mindy, her regular server, ran toward her. 

Keyla stared deeply at Mindy, she could read her mind, she could read her every thought. Her confusion, her worry at this moment. Her pain and sorrow she kept locked, deep inside. The trauma she had experienced rearing its head at the time of every difficult decision and every happy occasion. She could read the grief and loss Mindy had experienced. Every loss. Every thought, every ill intention, every prayer. She could read Mindy. 

“Keyla?” Mindy questioned. Her hand extended, questioningly.

“Sorry, yes. I’m sorry, I’m fine. I don’t understand what just happened. Mindy……Mindy are you okay?” Keyla whispered the last part. Still on the checkered floor of the cafe. 

“Me? You’re the one who fell. Must have been some good book to draw you in like that. Can I get you anything? An ice pack maybe? For your elbow? I saw you land on it” Mindy brushed her away. 

Keyla could read this too, and thanked her instead. I can read her kindness and her deflection. How? What is this? I understand everything about her. I know she is not okay, I know she is strong and chooses to be here even when all she wants is to sit in her bathtub and cry, and I understand it. How do I know that? She looked at the end page of the manuscript on her laptop. “Are you the reason?” she said out loud. 

Keyla packed up, paid, and began to make her way back to the lab. It had been three hours since she had stepped away and she hadn't even felt it. The possibilities swelled in her brain, was it the book? Had someone dosed her tea? She stepped back and tried to see the larger picture. She tried to understand the situation as it was. 

In an instant she was reading again, she was reading her own thoughts, she was reading the consequences of the manuscript. She was reading with certainty the effects of reading the book. She was reading the answer to her questions. The Manuscript was a skeleton key to every linguistic backdoor. Including the language of every person and every brain. She would be able to read any person and understand them, no matter the language. The book had been created for this purpose, then lost to time and dilettante greed. 

As that thought ended, Keyla realized she was back at the lab. She only now registered that she could read while her body took over menial tasks such as walking or small talk. The book had also granted her the proverbial auto-pilot mode. Do I want this? Do I want to go through life in a fugue state? Was she reading this or thinking it?

“This is too much, I don’t want this knowledge. I don't want to know, let alone understand every human thought and instinct. What’s next, Am I going to go home and understand my cat too? I don't want this.” she shouted into the empty lab. Just as she did, she read, Then you must protect the book, imagine what someone unlike you would do with a power like this? No one else can read it.

A small voice in the back of her mind fought to say, Then I must destroy it, maybe destroying it will make this stop? I need this to stop.

Before she could read or think of another word, Keyla acted purely on instinct and opened the anoxic chamber and exposed the book to the elements of the lab for the first time in a very long time. She expected the book to begin withering away, it certainly looked old enough to do just that. However, it didn't. 

She read: The book cannot be destroyed so easily, it is of unknown origin. You should protect it instead. Steal it. Ensure no one else reads it.

“Why do my own damn thoughts need to be read! I can think for myself. Are these even my thoughts? Am I losing my mind? Just freaking stop! Whatever this is. Stop! Now!” she cried out loud, her voice echoing off the quiet stainless steel of the lab. 

Keyla shut the book back into the anoxic chamber once more, the machine began to purge the oxygen. “20% remaining” the bar on the screen read. 

Save the book. Steal it. Let no one else read it. Save the book. Steal it. Let no one else read it. Save the book. Steal it. Let no one else read it. Save the book. Steal it. Let no one else read it. Save the book. Steal it. Let no one else read it. 

She read the line over and over again. Keyla whimpered, she shook her head, blinked intensely and looked away. Nothing worked. The same line continued on and on, like it was imprinted into her retinas. She could see them everywhere no matter where she turned, embossed into the foreground of her sight. 

“Oxygen purged” the machine beeped. She knew exactly what that beep meant. 

She pressed down on the ‘thermal purge’ button and turned the key at the same time, then started to punch in the override code. The ‘auto-pilot’ mode threatened to kick in and stop her. She fought it though. She fought it by visualising her favorite Comic characters cheering her on. She smiled as she pushed in the last number of the override code. 

Now, I’m watching the book burn. The book is screaming and sighing. No doubt exists in my mind any longer. I can think my own thoughts again. I don’t see any words in my sight, just the flames, happily crackling and snapping. The fire has consumed the book and finally died down to embers. It is finally done and can never be undone. 

Within the embers, the book existed still. Untouched. Unharmed. Waiting.