The Library

It was an ancient library and hadn't been seen by a living eye in centuries-- not a man, not a cat, not even an insect. But there were ghosts. They haunted this place, filled the halls with moans of death, rattling their chains, remembering when the mortals had perused these endless halls, finding a tome, a sentence they cherished. Something that gave their LIFE meaning… but now in death there was nothing but ghouls, nothing but the unreal, the mistakes roaming empty halls… crazing something, anything to see, to give them LIFE once again where there is none. This was a sad place, you see. The shelves, stretching ten feet up, no 20, no 30, were made of mahogany wood. They were a deep, rich red-- like blood mixed with oil. The library was many levels, countless levels, rising forever, to infinity-- books inside books inside books. Each word had a million other words inside the ink, and each of those words a million more… When Theo dreamed it, it made him want to cry, weep into his pillow. The library was a mandala, you concentrated on one of the shelves and let your mind wander to the titles, titles of books that had never been written. The library had a balcony in the middle. You could hang over the railing and look downward, for each floor had a space in the center, so you could stare through the levels, at the shelves, at the ghosts. 

Theo, I gave you this dream. I want you to find this place. No, in fact I need you too. The spirits tell me to, the ghosts. They scream at me. They scream THEO. Your eyes, they are the eyes of a dreamer, they do not live, they do not die, they are ghosts themselves. Nothing…

“Oy Theo!” 

 

“Wake up, Theo!”

“Yah?” 

 

“You were dreaming?”

“Ain't that so.” Theo rubbed his eyes. He was having those weird dreams again. They came so often now he feared to sleep. To close his eyes was risking the return of the library, the grand bibliotech of words and pages and most of all mysteries and conundrums. It was the realm of stone, of architecture, of pillars and columns. The realm of man, trapping the goddess upon the page and spanking her. If ever he were to get lost in those dusty hallways, he knew, he would never escape. The spirits that were trapped with those books, maybe because of those books bound in vellum and ancient spells, they wouldn't allow it. The library was quantum confusion, mirrors reflecting mirrors. If he were to become trapped there, he would never escape those mazes. It was impossible, no maybe not impossible, but extremely imprabable. Those halls were not meant for tangible people. They were meant for sufferers, destined to be pained until the end of time, entangled in Dante's 9 circles of hells, except these circles never stopped. 

Theo wanted a pizza. A big pizza covered in spicy things that would make his bowels hurt later. Pepperoni. Jalapenos. Italian sausage. Theo was an average kid from a middle class household. His family was normal and so was he, average to the median some would say. A true mean. And he had just been waken up in a class full of his peers who were now looking at him, smirks on their teenage faces. Average in mind. Average in family. But not average in looks. Dammit, Theo though, dammit to hell. Theo had dark brown hair, and a face many girls his age would call “hot!” Theo would talk to them, play them like a harp in an orchestra, get his way, get what he needed and get out. Fire and Ice, his friends called him sometimes. But now he had caught the watchful eye of Mrs. Bates.

Theo was sent to the principal's office at Roseland High School. He had been here before. Honest to God he never tried to make trouble, it always seemed to find him. Theo wished he could avoid all these shenanigans but he didn't know how. And he kept dreaming of that library, that never-ending library that seemed to be building, constructing itself through his mind like a Rube Goldberg painting. Mazes upon mazes.

There was something comfortable in it perhaps, releasing. He forget all this mundane world stuff, and got lost in life's mysteries, with the ghosts, and the books only dreamed, never put upon the page. Stories, that's all we are, stories, constructed from our lives, goals, pursuits, desires. That's all we are, and without them, there is no reason to live. Believe it Theo, the voice said. So the library grows, like a tree reaching upward with its branches and leaves, and rooting itself deeply in the earthy loam.

Theo's girlfriend hooted as she saw him in the Roseland school's high way of a hall. “Theo!” she called out. “Theo!” She was absolutely beautiful, had long legs, strawberry blond hair, and a voice so deep it would have set you back for a few moments. She sounded like Michael Clark Duncan with a cold, his friends often exaggerated. He thought her huskiness was sexy.

“What is it, Jessie?” he answered, walking toward her, hands his pockets. “Keep it down. I'm in trouble again. Going to the principal's. Got caught sleeping.”

“Isn't that so?” she answered back.

“What are you doing out here?” Theo answered back. “In the halls?”

“I-” she said. “A ghost in a library told me you would be here.”

Theo couldn't believe what she said. Were his dreams folding into the halls of his high school? Was his waking mind blending into his friends, family, real world? Theo looked at her, mouth agape. She had to be making this up, but he hadn't told anyone about his dreams. How could she know about them? How? He had to probe her. Had to find out. “Flabbadoris,” she said softly, “Flabbadoris wants to see you.”

“Flabba-who?”

“Flabbadoris, the great and powerful and flatulent.”

Did she just say flatulent?

“He wants to see you, Theo. He told me himself.”