The Library Where Dreams Were Kept

The town was ordinary. Narrow streets. Dusty shops. Children chasing kites. But at the edge of the market stood a building that nobody noticed until they needed it.

It looked like a warehouse, windows shut tight, paint peeling. People walked past without thinking.

Yet if you stopped, if you listened, you could hear breathing. Not from people. From books.

Arif discovered it on an afternoon when the sun refused to soften. He was thirsty, lost between errands.

The door was unlocked. He entered.

Inside, silence ruled. Not empty silence. A thick one, alive. Rows of shelves stretched higher than his eyes could climb. The books had no titles. No gold letters.

No colors. Just plain covers. Yet they whispered. A low murmur, like bees working.

Arif touched one. The book trembled.

It opened itself and showed him a dream. Not his own. Someone else’s. A girl dreaming of running through snow she had never seen. A man dreaming of holding his child for the first time.

A boy dreaming of flying with wings made of glass.

The library was full of them.

Millions. Maybe endless.

A figure appeared between shelves. An old woman in a gray shawl, eyes soft but watchful. She carried no candle, yet light followed her. “You should not touch without asking,” she said.

Arif stammered. “I—I didn’t know.”

Her smile was thin. “No one ever knows. That is why we keep them safe. Dreams are fragile.

They break if handled wrongly.”

He wanted to ask a hundred questions. Instead, one escaped his lips. “Whose dreams are these?”

She raised a hand, pointing at him.

“Yours. Mine. Everyone’s. All the dreams people lost, forgot, or abandoned. They come here to wait.”

Arif’s chest tightened. He thought of his own childhood. He had wanted to be a sailor once, to see oceans. That dream had faded under schoolbooks, then bills, then his father’s shop. Was it here too?

The woman must have read his thoughts. She led him to a shelf marked with nothing but dust. She pulled out a small book. It shivered in her hands. When she opened it, a salty wind blew across Arif’s face.

He saw himself, ten years old, standing at a harbor, eyes wide at ships taller than houses.

His throat burned. “That’s mine.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “But you left it behind.”

“Can I take it back?” His voice cracked like a boy’s.

“You may borrow it,” she said. “But dreams are not free. Once borrowed, they change you. They might even hurt.”

Arif hesitated. His hands shook.

He wanted the dream but feared what it would demand. Still, he nodded.

She closed the book, pressed it to his chest. The ink sank into him like water through cloth. For a moment, he felt sails above him, waves below, gulls calling. His heart raced.

He was alive in a way he had forgotten.

The woman looked at him with a kindness that carried warning. “Keep it safe. If you let it die again, it will not return here. Some dreams only get one second chance.”

He left the library trembling. The market looked the same, but nothing was the same inside him.

That night he dreamt of the sea again, but this time it felt closer, as if waiting.

In the days that followed, Arif began to save coins. Not many. Just enough for journeys. He bought a book about navigation. People laughed at him. “You are too old,” they said.

“You belong behind the counter.” He smiled but did not answer. Because he knew something they didn’t: his dream had returned, and it was heavier than their laughter.


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Final Thought

The library still waits at the market’s edge, unnoticed by most. Its shelves grow daily, filled with abandoned wishes.

Some people never return for theirs. But for those who do, the doors open. Because dreams never die completely—they only wait to be remembered.