The Library That Wasn’t There

M Mehran

Lena had always loved wandering. Not just the kind of wandering where your feet take you somewhere new, but the kind where your mind drifts past the edges of what makes sense. That was how she found the library.

It was raining the day she first saw it. She was hurrying home from work, coat dripping, when she noticed a narrow alley between two old brick buildings. She could have sworn it hadn’t been there before. Curiosity tugged at her, so she slipped inside. At the end of the alley stood a tall oak door carved with symbols that seemed to shift when she looked too long. Above it, in tarnished brass, was a sign that read: The Library of Lost Things.

The moment she pushed open the door, the rain vanished. She stepped into a cavernous hall, lined with shelves that spiraled into the shadows above. Dust danced in shafts of golden light. The air smelled of parchment, cedar, and something faintly sweet, like apples.

An elderly man at the desk looked up. His spectacles perched precariously on the tip of his nose. “Welcome,” he said, as though he had been expecting her. “You’re late.”

“I—I don’t even know what this place is,” Lena stammered.

“The Library,” he replied simply, sliding a massive leather-bound ledger toward her. “Everything that is lost ends up here. Objects. Memories. Choices. Whole futures, even. You may browse.”

Lena walked between the aisles, her fingertips brushing spines etched with titles like The Notebook You Misplaced in Fifth Grade and The Names You Forgot to Remember. On one shelf, she found The Friendship That Might Have Been. On another, Every Time You Didn’t Say What You Felt.

Her breath caught. Each book was a life she almost lived.

“Can I read them?” she asked the librarian.

“You may read,” he said, “but with reading comes remembering. And remembering has a cost.”

That night she opened her first book: The Letter You Never Sent. Inside was her own handwriting, pouring out love she had been too afraid to confess years ago. Tears burned her eyes. She closed it quickly, heart pounding, but she couldn’t shake the thought of what might have been if she had posted that letter.

She began visiting the library every evening. Work, dinner, even her friends faded into the background. She read about careers she might have chased, cities she almost moved to, people she never met. Some stories filled her with joy, others with regret so heavy it made her chest ache.

One night, she found a small, unmarked volume wedged between two massive tomes. Curious, she opened it.

The pages were blank.

“What is this one?” she asked.

The librarian’s eyes glinted behind his spectacles. “That is not what you lost. It is what you are losing.”

Her hands trembled. “What do you mean?”

“Your time,” he said softly. “Every hour spent here is an hour taken from your own unwritten story. You are forgetting to live while you read about what might have been.”

Lena felt cold sweep over her. She thought of the friends she hadn’t called in weeks, the projects she had abandoned, the laughter she hadn’t shared. The library had given her glimpses of her lost paths, but it had also been quietly devouring the present.

“I don’t want to lose now,” she whispered.

The librarian leaned forward. “Then you must decide. Close the book. Leave while you still can. Or keep reading, and let yourself fade into the shelves.”

Lena’s gaze darted to the unmarked volume. Its blank pages seemed to stretch infinitely, waiting to swallow her story. Her pulse raced.

Slowly, with trembling hands, she shut the book. The sound echoed like a door slamming.

The librarian nodded once, approval flickering in his tired eyes. “Wise. Few make that choice.”

The next moment, Lena found herself standing back in the rain-soaked alley. The oak door was gone. Only a crumbling brick wall remained.

For weeks she searched for the library again, returning to the same alley, circling blocks, even sketching symbols she remembered from the door. But it never appeared.

Sometimes, though, when she’s drifting off to sleep, she swears she hears the faint rustle of pages, as though a thousand lost stories are whispering her name.

But Lena has learned something crucial: not all lost things are meant to be found. Some are meant to remind you that the story you are writing now is the only one that matters.