Touch and Know

Kernelheist Library was the only twenty-four-hour library in Bittentime County outside of university property. Between Chamber’s Natural History Museum and Kardia Art Museum, Kernelheist’s marble block walls and limestone columns collected the full moon’s light, and if Olivia Tuffin had taken a second look, she might have caught a glint of mischief coming from the old building. A pale blue and milky white glimmer with flecks of glowing dust proclaimed that this night was to turn all the other nights of Olivia Tuffin, past and future, sullen by comparison. Low steps leading up to Kernelheist Library sang out the tap of Olivia’s boots as she ascended the steps with head down and mind far lost to the late hour. A political science major, Olivia prided herself in the extra hours she put towards her education. The price she paid for dyslexia, but a grand exchange it was to be both driven and creative, to see the world’s patterns and then some. There were days when Olivia’s mystified view of her own setbacks was more rooted in enchantment and other days when she wanted nothing more but to see the world as others perceived it. Tonight, Olivia cursed what she could not help and had yet to stop the flow of hot tears running down her face.

The young student failed her comparative politics final exam and that was only after a ten-day period of reading, re-reading, taking notes, taking those same notes again, and liters worth of hot coffee. Olivia had not just tried to prepare, she expounded the norms of human learning to insist her brain could absorb every facet she set before it, so it was defeating when her grade declared her a failure. Olivia took no delight in Kernelheist as she’d done every time before then. When she reached for the brass birdcage pull to open the door, Olivia took no mind of the images on the glass panes, those of beasts and other wild figures. There was no amazement at the size of the door, the thickness of its glass, or the way it opened seamlessly at Olivia’s request. The warmth of the library washed over Olivia, but she remained untouched by it. At the vestibule, where long mirrors stretched from the fifth floor to the ground, Olivia looked up from the stained, maroon rug and glimpsed herself in the reflection. Tawny skin with rosy cheeks and sable eyes now sent irritated by the constant flow of tears met Olivia’s gaze. She was tired, but there was more to it.

Olivia had trouble sleeping, and the written words, as of late, were harder to understand. When she read, Olivia heard too much in her head like every word in the book was trying to enter her attention at the same time. There was also a kind of sadness. A clinging discomfort that began in her chest and needled to the place behind her eyes. Olivia couldn’t help but think there was something she was waiting for, or at the very least something she was meant to notice, but had not.

Olivia sniffled, stood straight, and glared at herself. The t-shirt she wore depicted her university’s colors and the mesmerizing hold of Olivia’s curriculum insignia; two colorless eyes bisected by a line with the Latin words ‘tactum cognoscere’ printed below it. Undoing her hair, Olivia allowed the sepia locks left untended to for days to fall below her shoulders. Olivia Tuffin didn’t know it then, as she had no understanding of the future save for what she could imagine and plan, but a brilliant day would come when she would be the President of the United States of America. The title couldn’t be further from Olivia’s radar for the same reason what would transpire that very night wasn’t noticeable to her yet.

With a huff and a defiant wipe of her tears, Olivia avoided the lone librarian, a dutiful keeper of the books who stood a meter taller than Olivia with silver hair, fair skin, and mighty eyes that saw everything. If Mrs. Cleo saw Olivia, she’d know something was up and insist the young girl eat a cookie and drink a juice box in the break room, away from the books, before delving into the fourth floor. Olivia slipped beyond the sight of Mrs. Cleo and made her way to the bifurcated stairs, thankful the waterfall chandelier hanging above was not illuminated. As was the Kernelheist Library’s protocol every other light was extinguished, leaving just enough for people to find their books and nestle up to a table where a banker’s lamp awaited use.

The fourth floor was as far away as Olivia could think to get from school, from her crowded apartment, from her responsibilities, and dreams without blowing the rest of her savings on travel. Thin, packed aisles of black walnut bookcases and the distinct musky smell of well-traveled books welcomed Olivia to an empty fourth floor. It was perfect. Not a single person to be seen, just an amalgamation of old and new. Old breccia marble floor, new torch lamps at the end of every aisle. Old brass frames holding new call numbers for every row. New books with new ideas grounded in ancient thoughts and aged pages. Olivia traveled deep into the fourth floor, found a random aisle, closed her eyes, and reached for a book. Feeling for one with a thick spine, Olivia slid a rough tome from place, and opened it. Birds, both watercolor and drawn, spiraled in still flight before Olivia. Hornbills, with their vibrant colors and intelligent eyes, captured Olivia for a moment and took her far from her pain.

Olivia moved on with this behavior; she’d pick a book at random, open it up, and find pictures of galloping black rhinos, breaching orcas, curled pangolins, or leaf-sitting frogs. Towards the end of the aisle Olivia closed her eyes once more, selected a book by touch, and pulled. The book came out, but with it the fluttering and eventual soft crash of something else. Opening her eyes, Olivia found a book about various conservation methods in her right hand and at her left foot a closed, black book. Putting the book in her hand back, Olivia bent over and picked up the little black book, turning it around in her hands. No title, no pictured cover, just gentle creases on the spine where the book spoke of openings and closings time and time again. Running a thumb over the cream, lined pages, Olivia caught the ebony scrawl of words, some drawings, and a bookmark. When Olivia parted the pages, it was to find the bookmark was not a bookmark at all and the book was no book, but a notebook.

A pressure rested on Olivia’s chest. The notebook wasn’t hers. She snapped the small black notebook closed before getting a better look at the non-bookmark. Preparing herself to speak to Mrs. Cleo when she intended to remain hidden for the rest of the night, Olivia wished she never found the notebook as doing so meant turning it over to lost and found. At her fingertips, Olivia sensed a growing warmth and thinking it had to do with Mrs. Cleo turning up the heat she ignored the sensation until it felt like embers were catching her flesh. Looking down at the notebook, Olivia turned it once more in her hands, feeling the immense heat coming from it. The shine to its cover and weight to its form enticed Olivia enough so that she parted the pages once more and removed the bookmark. What looked to be about twenty square shaped pieces of paper held together by a single, black rubber band rested between her index finger and thumb. Holding the pieces of paper closer, Olivia caught the holographic shine fading to emerald, neatly written letters in a language Olivia could not identify, and at each corner a different scrawl with one corner revealing the only thing Olivia could read ‘$1,000’.

The pressure on Olivia’s chest left and replacing it a heavy intrigue, slight confusion, and a bit of humor. With the first smirk in what felt like years, Olivia opened the notebook and with more attention flipped through the pages. Black ink spelled words Olivia could not understand. These weren’t the solid letters of English or really any other language Olivia knew of, instead they were an arrangement of squares. Various in size, the squares filled every line as words would have and created a pattern. Several pages into the notebook was the first drawing, one of ovoid paths and globe shaped structures with numbers Olivia could read written beneath them. Trapped by the drawing’s complexity, Olivia turned the notebook this way and that, trying to follow the paths circling each globe. The warmth had not subsided and so sank deep into Olivia’s hands, leaving her with the distinct impression that she was not just touching the notebook, the notebook was touching her, holding her as she did it.

Eager to see the rest of the notebook, Olivia flipped the pages faster and faster while anticipation grew in her chest and stomach. Nervousness replaced Olivia’s humor and only turned to sheer delight, even tearful joy when she came upon a page written in English. Before she read the words, Olivia ran a finger over the writing, taking in the deep valleys left in the soft, but durable paper. Those words written thin in some areas, but thick in others caressed Olivia’s attention and so she read to herself.

“Beloved, it is not by fate alone we operate or by some mere biological endeavor we find ourselves within each other’s pull. Rather, we must consider all the heavens and all earths, all the stars and their planets, both dead and living, and how precise the turning of these things must be to warrant the dangers and sufferings we encounter.” Olivia didn’t know it then, but a voice, low and hushed, entered her mind and read for her.

“If only by these occurrences we were to meet and those horrid tortures selected me as their sole carrier, then I’d find it a small price to pay, but it was not only me who was selected. You were as well. I will not stand by and watch you fill the bounty that should have only been placed on my head. I can do it no longer. Choice has always been the way of ourselves, but in the end it is the thing I took from you. Please forgive me, as you forgave me for war, for entrapping Death, for filling the stellar with grief, for denying the pardoned, and for every misuse of a power I was given, but refused to understand. Forgive me for erasing every part of your life from memory.”

The cream pages went ice cold, the ink swirled in Olivia’s mind, the room spun, and the notebook fell to the ground. Holding her head, Olivia closed her eyes and breathed into her nose and out her mouth. When she opened her eyes, it was to blurred vision and the shape of something at the end of the aisle. Blinking several times, Oliva cleared her eyes and took in the shadowed figure sitting on the ground several meters away. A man with his arms bound behind him watched Olivia with bloodshot eyes, the center of which held a warming stare. The man smiled gently, his features softened, and perhaps in retaliation his body forced him to heave so that blood spilled from his lips. The man shook it off and when his eyes found Olivia there were tears pressing down his taupe skin before hiding in the ebony ringlets of his beard. Olivia wanted to cry as well, but those tears would come from a place long forgotten.

“Help me, Olivia.” The man begged before his figure disappeared and Olivia was left with the little black notebook and the holographic money scattered everywhere.