Midnight Library

I stumbled and fell. The rain slicked, night dark streets sprawled before me. Behind me the bar was warm lit, cozy. I heaved a sigh and pulled my sweater close. Poor company though – sodden as it was. But November was like this and I resigned myself to being cold and miserable. I’d been here before. Somewhere beneath the haze and the vodka I could remember saying things I would regret in the morning, feeling the pellets of icy almost rain on my face. Chicago’s version of a hello.

Hello or goodbye.

Half frozen, my fingers fumbled for a cigarette in my bag, and I ducked into one of the doorways to light it. I would wait out the worst of the rain.

Not thinking – or maybe half hoping - I tried the door and, though the windows gave off no light, it opened.

Spooky.

I pushed my way in anyway.

From somewhere in the back I could hear voices. And feel heat.

Bookshelves soared to ceilings that dusted rafters. An orphan cat wound round my legs and I bent to pet it without looking,

Snatching my hand away when it snarled at me.

the room stretched on forever.

Book after book after book

A dusty red carpet stretched itself past the shelves, down one staircase, up another, around a corner and out of sight where an old dog lay beneath what might have been a fireplace stuffed with teddy bears. Up the stairs and just out of sight a pile of tea cups built higher and higher, waging war on gravity and one another, once in a while, one of them toppling to the ground. And from somewhere a piano played.

I pulled my hair into a twist atop my head, careful not to drip on the books or rug.

Everything was paper and wood and music. And secrets. I could feel them buzzing around me, all the words and thoughts of a millennia, committed there to paper and cup and animal. A small man with a bathrobe and two pair of glasses, one on his head and another on his face, came up the stairs just then. “Why, Asperterre!” he said.

I looked around.

“Who?”

“aren’t you Asperterre?”

and I shook my head and moved my hand suddenly from the small black book that I’d been holding, just one of the volumes and volumes housed in this miraculous space.

The man grew and grew until he stood before me, a great giant of a man

And I was afraid.

“Asperterre is the only one for whom the midnight library is open!”

“I want to stay!”

And suddenly, desperately, staying became the only thing

And this place became the only place.

And the book I held became the key to the staying. I slipped it into the pocket of the sweatshirt I wore just as the man lifted me and threw me from the Midnight Library.

And I stood

Fingers shaking

On a bright avenue, doors lining a tree shaded street. There were dogs and people, newspapers and sound. The world come back and I had returned to it. Or perhaps, more appropriately, the man had returned to to this … bright space.

On a bright day

Holding a small, black, book

“Bribes”

It said.

And inside, just one line.

$20,000

It said.

“To Forget”

But I never have forgotten.

And I never will forget.

And now I try every door. Searching for The Midnight Library and the Man with two pair of Glasses and the girl he called Asperterre.

Just one to bring me back to the place with the magic. Just one to take me from the mundane to the magical.

Just … one … moment.

And now I believe.