The Library

She asked for a story again. I don’t dare do it again. The first time I got caught telling her a “story” because I was telling her about Florence Nightingale who started the International Red Cross and became a nurse against the societal norms of the times. My punishment? My daughter was taken from me for 6 months. It was supposed to be longer but the someone on the council went to the judge and warned that without a child libraries were known to falter. So … they took her away from me because I told her a story.

My hand goes to my throat and to the once battered, but now smoothed with worry, locket around my neck. Why? Books no longer exist. Paper? Nope. Trees? They still do but it’s illegal to cut them down without special government permission. There is a story about the trees but that is such a long story with politics, science, history and religion lesson. The books and how the world changed … well … there was an election. The man elected didn’t like the ideas funneled through the printed page. Ridiculous, right? There were protests to save bookstores, libraries, newspapers, etc. It didn’t matter because his followers overthrew the tenets of our country. They were dark days watching democracy die. There was an exodus of citizens to other countries who could afford to leave. Those who didn’t have the money to leave, were forced to stay and did what they needed to do to survive. Some of those who stayed formed the resistance and decided to fight. The government rounded the rest of those people up. We know some were executed, some were jailed, some deported and some have become human libraries.

I am a human library because I have a photographic memory. Everything I have ever read I can repeat back like Siri. People no longer can access the internet. No books on a tablet. No cellular phones no paper for letters or packages. If you need information, you come to one of the old shelled out libraries. There you will find a version of me. A human library. Human libraries all look similar. Cardigan, glasses (whether you actually need them or not), pearl necklace. The government will allow us to wear pants and comfortable shoes but in the beginning it wasn’t like that. They had us dressing like we were going to a 1950’s cocktail party in a shelled out Carnegie donated library. Crazy, right? I buck tradition and have a locket. I will be buried with it someday. When I am gone there will be another library to take my place. I hope when that day comes the books will have come back and so will have librarians.

I watch her eyes as she looks at me with her father’s eyes. “Mama, please, no one is coming today. Please will you tell me the story.”

“I am a library. We aren’t supposed to tell stories. I have to share approved facts, history and science not frivolous stories.”

She pouts.”Mama, didn’t you used to say that stories were there to help us understand things that science, history and fact couldn’t explain … things of the heart.”

“I did. That was before and the world changed. I am the library. I have a promise to keep.”

“To keep us safe.”

“Yes.”

She was right. No one comes to the remains of our small town library. No one comes to ask about World War I or II, the War of 1812. No one asks about the poetry of Robert Burn or Robert Frost or ee cummings. As the human library, the government has made sure the roof doesn’t leak. The windows aren’t broken. We have heat, food to eat and clean water to drink. We share what little we have. There are neighbors who refuse to acknowledge us anymore. We are collaborators. They are probably right. Let them call me whatever they like I can’t lose my daughter again. If I did … no I don’t want to think of what I would do.

Tucking my daughter into bed, she asks for a story. “No. They are outlawed. We can’t have stories. No bedtime stories.” I turn on her pale pink lamp and wish her sweet dreams. “Dream of Papa.”

“Dream of Papa, Mama” Even displays of affection are outlawed so we have a code. It was her idea, my clever girl.

The sun has faded, the kitchen as been cleaned up and the world is still. I sit by our fireplace that doesn’t burn wood but a wood substitute. I close my eyes and go to my crystal library. I smell the delicious scent of cherry wood burning, as I lay on a comfy overstuffed couch book in hand. I look at the spine, PERSUASION by Jane Austen. My favorite book about love lost and found again. I hate what this world has become. The loss of love, vibrancy and joy from discussing a good book. It has gone gray or god forbid puce. In my crystal library the light shines making rainbows dance, Billie Holliday sings and I am in the magnificent world of Jane Austen.

I feel something brush against my locket. My eyes are closed holding onto my crystal library. I feel the brush of whiskers against my cheek. “You didn’t take it off.”

“No.”

“Not even to see what was inside.”

“No.” I was tempted

“Open it.”

I open the heart shaped locket around my neck that he lovingly made so we could marry. He made it out of pennies that he found here and there. Rolled tightly inside was a scrap of paper. A scrap of paper from a BOOK! The Collected Works of Jane Austen … page 618 … the day we married. He was home. “Is it over?”

“Yes.”

“No more human libraries?’

“No more human libraries.” I don’t stop to kiss him. I run up the stairs to our daughter. I shake her shoulder gently. “Sweetie, ask me again.”

“Ask you again.” I nod my head. “Mama, tell me a story.”

I close my eyes, take a deep breath. “Once upon a time …