Rays of the late sunset flooded in through the windows at the back of the library, casting elongated shadows across the carpet. The books were doused in a fiery orange light. Dust and swirling motes sprinkled through the air, made visible in the bright streams cutting intermittingly across the aisles. The tiny sprites alighted upon the couches still sunken in and warm from their earlier inhabitants.
A woman’s voice echoed loudly across the library, slicing through the sleepy silence. “Ten minutes until closing!”
A new shadow came forth from one of the aisles. A young boy emerged, shielding his eyes from the sunset’s last glimmer. He looked around and spotted a beanbag chair, indented like the couches. He slumped over to it and sat down, listening to the beans resettle themselves like trickling drops of rain. His eyelids suddenly grew heavy. The library became smaller and smaller as they closed, the orange light fading into black. Gradually he became one with the stillness and silence.
His eyes reopened to a girl looking down upon him.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“I’m sleeping,” he replied, startled.
“Why?”
“…Why not?”
“You’re in a library, shouldn’t you be reading or something?” she said, putting her hands on her hips. She wore a white dress. “You can sleep at home.”
“Well, what are you doing?” He said, shifting uncomfortably in his beanbag.
“Right now, talking to you. I thought that was obvious.”
“Okay… What were you doing before?”
“I was researching the flight patterns of the Blue-breasted Mockingbird of South Asia.”
“…And why would you want to do that?”
“Because it’s where I ended up today.”
“Where you ended up?”
“I pick a name and roll a couple dice. The name is the last name of the author and the dice tell me which aisle to go to.”
“So you randomly read whatever the dice tell you?”
“It’s not random if the dice tell me, now is it?”
“I…uh…guess not.”
“I bet it’s more than you’ve done! Why are you here if you just wanted to sleep?”
“I haven’t been sleeping the whole time…”
“What else have you been doing, then?”
“I read a few things.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“I started a couple Jane Austen novels.”
She narrowed her eyes. “No you didn’t.”
“Fine. I read comics.”
“Which ones?”
“Marvel mostly.”
“Which ones?” she repeated irritably. Her eyes were a startling green, accented by what remained of the sunset. “Spiderman? X-men? The Incredible Hulk? Captain America? Thor? Iron man?”
“Uh… How do you know all those?”
“Just because I’m a girl I can’t read comics?”
“No, I didn’t mean…”
“You should read a Jane Austin, you know. I bet you could relate to Mr. Darcy.”
The boy said nothing, but looked inquisitively up at her.
“He’s stuck up,” she said at last.
“I’m not stuck up!”
“Oh no?”
“No!”
“Well, you’re fake then.”
“Fake?”
“Yes, fake,” the girl turned around and started walking down an aisle, perusing the edges of books with her fingertips.
The boy hoisted himself from the beanbag and scurried after her. “What do you mean ‘I’m fake’?”
“Well,” she said, removing a book and replacing it two shelves down. “It’s the same with everyone. They say what they think they should say, instead of what they want to say. No one ever tells the truth.”
“I didn’t lie! Well, except about Jane Austen, but whatever.”
“Alright then. Why are you here?”
“Why am I… uh… to read, of course. Why else would I be?”
“No, why did you come here?”
“I just told you: to read.”
“That’s not the real reason, though. That’s what you did when you came here – assuming you weren’t asleep on that beanbag the whole time – but not why you came here in the first place,” the girl turned the corner at the end of the aisle and disappeared, the tail of her white dress waving behind her. “So why did you come here?” she said, poking her head back into the aisle, her face illuminated in an orange ray of light, her eyes sparkling like polished emeralds.
The boy sighed. “I don’t know. Why did you come here? To read?” he said mockingly.
She pulled her head back out of the aisle. He followed her. “Of course not!” she said, walking away from him and gesturing broadly with her hands. “Well, I suppose that is the effect – reading – but not the cause.”
“What’s the cause?”
“It’s like I said before: everyone in the real world is fake,” she turned around to face him. “You can never tell how anyone really feels or what they really think. They aren’t honest.” She dashed down another row. He rushed after her. “They are mean,” she said in a villainous voice, reappearing with a book held under her chin and a cartoonish scowl. “And deceptive,” she said, passing the book over her face and changing her expression to a kind smile when it was above her head. “Books are easier. There aren’t any secret pages to look for. The characters don’t make fun of you behind your back while smiling to your face. The words mean what the words mean. All there is is what the author decided to include and what you are meant to perceive from it. Everything is out in the open.”
“So…you’re here because you hate people?”
“I don’t hate people!” she said, chuckling as she replaced another book. “I just get tired of talking to masks sometimes.”
“Oh.”
“I wish I could be a ghost,” she said, dancing down an aisle, rising and falling, turning on the tips of her toes. “And just float around.” She ran her fingers along the book bindings as she glided down the row, fast then slow, her white dress twirling and twisting on the stage before the dying sunset, violet clouds watching her through the windows. “And only reveal myself to whom I wanted.” She stopped at last, posing dramatically under the orange cream light, the pearly white of her dress capturing the few remaining rays, her head back and eyes closed with her arms stretched above her, fingers splayed in an elegant fashion. The boy simply stared.
After a moment she opened one eye. “So,” she said, coming out of her pose. “Why did you come here?”
“Closing time!” rang the voice of an old woman. “Everyone out!”
“I, uh… have to get home.” He said, unsure of how to speak to her as she stood there in front of the pinks and reds and blues of the sky, the sun’s palette growing ever more brilliant in its last moments of life. The boy could think of only one thing to say.
“Same time tomorrow?”
He looked timidly down each aisle as he passed them. The distant beeps of scanners registering books to be checked out echoed far behind him as he pressed deeper into the library. He found that he could not recall his day before now. He was simply here, wandering through the rows and waiting for the return of the sunset.
He looked over at the windows, standing tall, side by side, at the end of a row. The light was changing to the same deep orange as the day before. Soon it would be time to leave.
As if on cue, the woman’s voice rang out, “Ten minutes until closing!” The boy sighed, his heart growing heavier with each passing second, as if he was missing an opportunity. Each moment gone was a moment wasted.
He followed a trail of light along the ground as it stretched toward him. His shorts ended at the knees and he could feel its warmth on his legs. He noticed one of his shoes was untied. As he bent down and began to whip the laces over one another, a second pair of shoes appeared in front of his. They were girl’s shoes. His heart leapt.
“Boo!” the girl said as he stood up. She wore the same white dress. As she stared at him, her head slightly cocked to the side, the sunlight behind her, the boy was once again lost for words.
He thought quickly. “Do you wear that dress every day?” he regretted it as soon as it came out of his mouth. What a stupid thing to say, he thought.
To his surprise, she laughed. Her teeth were as white as her dress. “It’s my Library Dress!” she said. “Just like those must be your Library Shorts, right?”
“I wasn’t wearing these yesterday!”
“Sure you weren’t,” she said, smiling. “You’re too cool for library shorts.”
“I am, as a matter of fact,” he said with playful confidence. The words were suddenly coming more easily. “The library is about the books, anyway,” he continued pompously, throwing his nose in the air. “Not what you wear.”
“Oh, what would you know? You never read!”
“I do, too!”
“And what have you read today? Hm? Please, tell me all about it!”
“Well I haven’t been here long! I’ve been looking for…” he paused briefly and hoped she didn’t notice. “…the right one to check out.”
“I see,” she said.
“What have you read? Where did your dice lead you today?”
“Here!” she exclaimed, holding a book in front of her with both arms outstretched. He shifted so she was blocking the light from hitting his face, squinting at the title.
“The Alchemist?” he said. “I’ve heard of that before.”
“It’s really popular, actually…” she looked down at her feet and tilted back on her heels a couple times.
“What?” he said.
“Okay okay! You got me! I didn’t use the dice today. I just read it because I wanted to.”
“For shame!”
“It was so good though!”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s the story of a boy who is searching for something, and in the end he…”
“’In the end he…’ what?”
“Well I don’t want to spoil it! Who knows,” she said sweetly. “One day you might actually try reading something.” She giggled and ran down the aisle.
Smiling, he gave chase.
“Watch it, kid!” came the stern voice of a man who appeared around the corner. The boy nearly ran into him. “This isn’t a track, it’s a library, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Sorry…” he said, avoiding the man’s eyes.
“Who were you talking to?”
“What?”
“Who were you talking to?” the man repeated, looking around. “I heard you talking. It’s almost closing time, you know.”
“I know.”
The man grunted and walked off.
The boy slowly slid out of the aisle.
“Psst!” came a voice from behind the couch. The girl poked her head up. Her blonde hair was tinted golden as a stream of the sunset’s radiance caught her in its grasp. “Get over here!”
The boy scurried over to the couch. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “And why are you whispering?”
“I’m hiding!” she said. “Get down here!”
“Why? Who’s looking for us?”
“No one,” she said in a normal tone. “I just wanted to see if you would whisper if I started whispering.”
He sat down next to her. They leaned up against the back of the couch and looked out the window before them. The boy raised his hand to block the light. Beyond the library, which was perched atop a hill, was a great drop off that descended into a valley. Miles away, past the valley was a sea of rolling hills. The sun was doing all it could to keep from sinking beneath them once again. Every day, it seemed, it would try to shine as long as possible, ignoring the inevitable and delaying sleep until its last glimmer had utterly expired.
The boy turned his head. She had not blocked out the light, but instead let it engulf her as she stared, wide-eyed, beyond the window, the emeralds sparkling just like before, her hair flowing down onto her shoulders, a cascade of brilliant gold.
“So why did you come here?” she asked without looking at him.
“I told you,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“Now that’s a shame,” she said, smiling.
“Why’s that?”
“Life is too short to wonder about things like that.”
“Isn’t it enough that I’m here? Do I have to know why?”
She looked him in the eye. His heart seemed to stop beating.
“No,” she said simply, the corner of her mouth crooked slightly upward.
“Closing time!” rang out the woman’s voice. “Everyone out!”
The sunset had splashed its palette across the sky in a last, desperate attempt to hold itself afloat above the surface of the hills.
“Stay here with me,” the girl said. Her voice was the whisper of an angel, pure and sweet. “We don’t have to leave.”
“What?” he said, a kaleidoscope of images and possibilities flooding through his mind. “Stay here? In the library?”
“Yeah. Just the two of us.”
“I… I can’t. My parents would be so worried.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said, hanging her head very subtly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He saw her hand pressed against the floor, slender fingers spread out as if they were trying to bury themselves in the carpet.
“It must get so lonely here at night,” she said quietly.
“For who?” he asked, still watching her hand.
“The books, of course. No one to read them. No one who they can tell their stories to.”
“Yeah, I would imagine,” he said. He reached out slowly for her hand, his heart resuming beating and picking up speed. He wondered if she could hear it.
She looked down just before he could make contact. Withdrawing her hand, she stood up curtly. The sun had nearly disappeared completely.
“Tomorrow?” she said.
After a moment, he nodded.
The moment he caught sight of that white dress disappearing into an aisle all thoughts fell through a hole punctured in the floor of his mind. He could think of nothing else, as if some barrier prevented him from reentering the realm of reality he had left behind when he stepped into the library.
Everything he usually cared about drained from him in a torrential flood as she walked out from the aisle, waved, and skipped over to him.
“Hi!” she said. The hem of her dress drifted around her legs delicately. “Look where I ended up today!” she continued before he could speak, extending her hand. He reached for it, but she had already taken off down an aisle. “Come on!” she shouted back.
As he jogged after her he watched the stripes of light pass by underneath his feet, split up by the bookshelves bordering each row. Light, dark. Light, dark. He found her squatting in a children’s section with a book propped open on her knees.
“Aren’t you supposed to be quiet in a library?” he asked as he sat down next to her.
“That’s only for people who don’t know how to be loud properly,” she said. “Look at this!”
“It’s a… pop-up book?”
“Yep! I think it’s ridiculous that these things are only for kids,” she turned the page and a scene from the prehistoric era sprang out of the paper, dinosaurs standing tall and baring their teeth and stomping their enormous feet. She grabbed a small handle on the back of one with wings and moved it up and down, making the wings flap.
“Doesn’t it look like he’s trying to escape?” she said, enthralled with her ability to animate the cardboard creature.
The boy chuckled. “I remember these,” he said. “I loved them when I was younger.”
“I still love them,” she said. “It’s a shame that people have to pretend not to like things sometimes, just to be cool.”
“But they’re just being fake,” he said.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Yeah.”
“Do you still think I’m fake?
“Well, that depends, now doesn’t it?” she closed the book, placed it back on the shelf, and wrapped her arms around her knees. She rested her chin on them as she stared at him unrelentingly with her bright eyes – two little green flames in the shadows.
“On what?” he said.
“If you can tell me why you came here.”
“Haven’t we had this discussion before?”
“We have, but you’ve never given me an answer.”
“I see.”
“So, are you gonna be fake? Are you gonna be like everyone else?”
He thought for a moment, holding his chin in his hand and looking off to the side. “I’ll give you an answer by the end of the night.”
“Alright, but you better have one,” she said, standing up. She tapped her wrist. “It’s Friday, which means you have an extra hour to decide.”
He nodded and stood up, too. “Looks like we’ll actually be able to see the sun go down this time,” he said, looking out the windows.
“The sun goes down every day,” she said with a giggle. “I mean, I know you aren’t well-read, but I assumed you would know that!”
“I – we just always have to leave before it completely sets. I’ve never actually seen it disappear.”
“Well then you’re in for a treat!” she said.
She darted across the library, passing in front of the couches and windows and sunset, her white dress flowing behind her like the wings of a swan. Distant windmills standing on the hills extended their shadows along the grass – the sun’s fingers trying desperately to keep from slipping away, elongating further and further until the light around them began to fade and mesh together with the slender shadows.
The boy followed, running faster than he meant to. Someone shouted at him from an aisle and he slowed down to a jog, embarrassed, but not deterred from keeping up with her.
He came to a small spiral staircase in the corner. The waving white cloth flashed at the top and disappeared onto the loft above. Palm skimming the handrail, he took the steps three at a time, bounding quickly to the top.
The loft was small, with only a few shelves of books and two bean bag chairs. Windows surrounded the space, gracing the purple clouds with one last chance to impress their beauty upon any observers. Even the ceiling was made of glass, exposing the dramatic, magenta sky.
The girl had plopped down in a chair and was staring up through the windows, her hands propping up her head. He sat in the chair beside her.
“You never get caught,” he said. “I’m always the one getting scolded.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re not quick enough,” she said to the sky, smiling.
For a few moments they said nothing. The sky darkened, the sun was reluctantly swallowed by the hills, and the stars began to awaken.
“You know the sun never really sets,” she said.
“It looks set to me.”
“I mean, somewhere on the planet it’s still up in the sky. Just because it’s gone for you doesn’t mean it’s really gone.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Of course!”
“If you say so,” she shifted in her chair, the beans tinkling past one another. “Do you believe in infinity?” she asked, looking at him.
“Um… I’m not sure,” he said. “I guess I just prefer not to think about it.”
“Why not?”
“I guess it’s… because I don’t like to think about the future. I like just existing, wherever I am, and not worrying about what’s to come.”
“’Live in the moment’, there’s a new one,” she scoffed.
“And what’s your grand life philosophy, if you’re so clever?”
“I don’t have one.”
“You? Of all people? I’m shocked.”
“Don’t be,” she said. She looked back up, out the window. “The stars are beautiful.”
For a while they were silent once more. The twinkling lights of the cosmos shone brighter with each passing second. Moonlight began to spill in through the windows and onto the loft. When next he looked at her, her golden hair was almost white in the pale rays.
“So,” she said. “If you like to live in the moment all the time, what are you going to do with this one?” The moonlight flitted across her face as she turned towards him, the emeralds became teal and her skin eggshell. “There’s a lot we could talk about in this extra hour.”
“True,” he said, failing to think of any words to follow up. His mind was utterly blank, overwhelmed by his existence in this perfect moment. He took a deep breath. “I guess,” he began with a sigh. “I came here to pretend like I had friends.”
The girl listened silently.
“It’s sort of like you said: Books can’t lie to you. Words are words. The characters don’t judge you or make fun of you for being different. They accept you just like you have to accept them. They can’t change, after all, and neither should you.”
His heart pounded in his chest. Never before had he said those words to someone. Maybe she would think he was weird. He finally mustered up the courage to look over at her.
She was grinning. “That sounded rehearsed,” she said.
He laughed. “That’s good. I was afraid it didn’t make any sense at all.”
“It wasn’t fake, though.”
“No,” he said, almost to himself.
“So, thank you,” she said softly. “For being real.”
“…Actually,” he said, wondering if she could hear the quiver in his voice. “It was fake.”
“Oh?” she said.
“That was the reason I had been coming here. Imaginary characters. Superheroes. I could join in on any adventure I wanted to. I could be anyone. At first… I was here for them; my many different selves and my countless friends on paper. But they were all fake, too, just like everyone else – just in a different way, I guess.”
She said nothing.
“But not you,” he said with some difficulty. “You’re the most real thing there is.”
He watched her for a minute. The silky strands of her pearlescent hair fanned out across the red leather bean bag chair. She seemed transfixed on the sky above her, and continued with her silence for a long time.
Then a tear fell down her cheek. Like a falling star, its trail gleamed in the moonlight.
“Are you alright?” he asked her.
She turned on her side and nodded, smiling weakly.
He moved nearer to her. She simply stared at him, entranced by something he couldn’t guess at. It was almost like she was looking right through him, her eyes glazed over and her face expressionless. But still she did not speak. He moved closer.
When he tried to kiss her she pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry… Let’s go back downstairs.”
She sprang to her feet, her hands shaking and tears now flowing freely down her face as if the night sky had released its hold of the stars and they all came tumbling down.
She bolted down the stairs. He could barely keep up. Why hadn’t he prolonged that moment? Had he wasted it? Had he done something wrong?
“Wait!” he shouted. “Wait!”
At the bottom of the stairs was an old woman. “What are you doing up there?” she squawked at him. “There’s no running in the library!”
The girl stood right beside the woman, looking between her and the boy, a look of utter terror upon her face, eyes wide and unblinking.
“And who were you talking to?” the woman said. “Are you hiding a dog up there? There are no pets allowed in the library!”
“I was… I was just talking to my friend,” he said, confused. He looked at the girl. Her watery eyes pleaded with him but he did not know why.
“What friend?” the woman said, looking around her.
The girl stood still as a statue, quivering with fright.
The boy looked at her. He looked into her emerald eyes once more.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
And then the girl in the white dress disappeared, fading into nothing before his eyes.
That was incredible.
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