Library
“Library”
an attempt at comedy
by J. Alexander Genz
Due to growing pressures in my home and personal lives, I decide to take up residence among the dusty back shelves of the local library. Packing a small bag with nothing save the necessities, I wave goodbye to my home. Later, I carry myself and my bag inconspicuously into my new home, breathing the wonderful aged must of comfortable old novels. A book I recognize from my childhood sits on the front shelf, sees me come in, doesn’t see me leave.
I spend a gloriously languid day reading, almost swallowing the stories one by one. Then, when the intercom announces closing time I prepare myself for the difficult task of finding a suitable hiding place in the back. This anxiety proves unnecessary however, as they only make a few cursory searches of the place before turning the lights off and locking the doors.
No one who has never been locked inside a public place by themselves can truly, really fathom the immense sense of freedom it brings you. What was once everyone’s is now no ones but your own, you feel more than privy entitled to explore it from end to end, top to bottom, to discover its secrets. That is what I did my first night in the library, I frolicked in it till dawn. I sat in all the chairs until I found my favourite (the only purple one, all the rest were red). I explored the private reading rooms (and, with a bit of nervousness, the girls bathroom), and finally, the administrative area, which was the real gold mine. It was in there that I found all sorts of private rooms, one for meetings, one for binding and repairing used books, and one especially archaic, vaultish room used for storing the most archaic, vaultable books. I was in heaven studying these until the sun came up, and when it did and the first employees returned to work I discovered no one ever came back here. This would be my room, I decided, definitely.
The next day I fall asleep in my purple chair, exhausted from the night’s revelry. I awake to a kind librarians authoritarian shaking, she tells me it is closing time and escorts me out the door before I am conscious enough to know what is happening.
Damn it.
I am forced to spend the night in the woods behind the building, I tell myself I must sleep, but in the end I have to force myself, and there is much tossing and turning.
I wake up very well rested, however, early the next afternoon. With a yawn and a stretch, I grab my things and march resolutely, almost defiantly, back into the library, mentally daring the librarians to try and make me leave my new home again. For the rest of the day I once more pour over books until hiding time. That night I finish the last of the rations I packed and realise I must go grocery shopping the next day. My sleep is content; a book from my childhood is clutched in my arms.
The next day I go grocery shopping. I have some money and stock up on the necessities: milk, eggs, cheese, bread, fruit, vegetables, chocolate. I sneak into the meeting room during working hours and store these in the mini fridge, counting on the librarians all to assume that it is someone else’s, and no questions will be asked.
The next few weeks I spend here are the happiest of my life. I become a well liked regular and make many friends. I spend my days acquiring more knowledge than I ever have before, and my nights well, acquiring knowledge is really all there is to do, but its one thing that never gets old.
Then the bad thing happens.
I wake up from a dream I’ve been having in which Tom Wolfe is beating the shit out of Truman Capote with a hardback copy of "In Cold Blood" to a weirdly oppressive atmosphere. Yawning and stretching, I shrug this off as residue from my dream and singing the refrain from a Parliament song I wander out to greet the day. Almost immediately I notice the complete silence of the building, which puts me on alert. Then I remember this is a library, slap myself in the head, and call myself an idiot. But unfortunately I am unable to shake the unease that is slowly enveloping me like cotton. It dawns on me that there are two kinds of quiet: library quiet, and too quiet murder quiet. I realize, with sudden perspiration, that this is the latter. It is at about this moment that I notice the complete lack of people and the fact that all the lights are off. With a quiet yelp I race to the door. It is padlocked from the outside and more boarded up! I cannot see out. No one can see in. By this time I am extremely agitated with worry.
A week later the food is gone; I have gone through every invariable stage someone in my position goes through. I spent a while in denial, a few days reasonable waiting for redemption, and then a few more screaming and pounding on things in the hope that someone will hear me. Now I’ve eaten everything and desperation is peering at me from down the nonfiction aisle, rows 901 - 1086. It’s impossible to explain how that place I’d once viewed my paradisic home was contracting around me, the air growing staler every day, everything feeling heavier, my pupils are so wide. There was just no explanation for the complete twist my situation has taken. The water fountains still work, but I am hungry, and by the end of the second week . . .
I sit, pretzel style in the back of the library near the one window where a crack in the boards lets a sliver of light through, a copy of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” in my hands. I watch it silently for a long time, thinking. In my head I see Ayn, her life, her thoughts, her fingers on the keys, her hand gripping a pen. I see her wondering and worrying over this book I hold, see her pout everything into it, perfecting it, making it hers. I see the corners of her mouth turn up and I hear her soft, writer’s sigh as she types the “d” on “end” and leans back to ponder her masterpiece. Slowly I open the book, tear out the first page, and crumple it into my mouth.
I never liked Ayn Rand anyway.
The taste is pretty much as expected. Not delicious, no, not delicious at all. Bland, occasionally bitter, flat. After the first chapter, though, I overcome my initial qualms and, throwing all propriety to the wind begin cramming the pages by the fistful into my face, chewing quickly, swallowing, repeating. The book is done, I laugh, burp, and for some reason faint. I dream of the jungle, where things are - wild things - and I am one of them. In the dream I am one of them.
I wake up hungry. I eat a few non-fiction books, something about origami and “Wall Street for Dummies”. Then I return to yelling and hitting things, as was my previous routine. For lunch I swallow an Anne Coulter novel, then vomit, then eat one of Anne Rice’s - the one about vampires. It satisfies me, and this worries me. I go to sleep early.
I wake up hungry, and eat a dictionary. My stomach hurts. An hour later, I munch on an urban planning brochure while reading something else. When I reach a point in the narrative that displeases me, I rip it out and chew it up, surprised and pleased at the godlike sense of power that surges through me. For dinner, I have a brilliant idea and go in search of the cooking section.
I wake up hungry, with papercuts on my lips.
Is paper really capable of sustaining a human life this long? I look it up in the encyclopedia. I search for paper, digestive system, appendix, and nutrition; none of these tells me what I need, so I eat them all. It has been a week, and I have been eating between meals, what grew from necessity has become an all-consuming pastime. I’ve given up hope for rescue and use my free time playing a game I’ve made up. The game is called Reverse Gutenberg and its main object is to decide which books get saved and which ones melt for eternity in my torturous stomach acids. I’ve long since decided the non fiction books are expendable and the NF aisles are fairly gone over. The shelves sparkle in the darkness like the ribs of a buzzard-picked carcass. Dinner tonight is a tough decision but I finally decide Stephen Hawking’s time has come. I mutter a placating promise that he will “walk the plains of the next life” before sinking my teeth into the cover.
I wake up hungry and quite weak. My throat is sore from the rough edges I’ve been forcing down it for months. I have a nice soft Dr. Seuss for breakfast - the last one. I look around and realize there are no more expendable books left. This is where the challenge begins. Tonight I go hungry for the first time in a while, Tolkien on my right and Lewis on my left. When I wake up, they are gone. I know it is no use trying to save the ones I love. From this point on I begin the practice of taking a book down, reading it cover to cover, and then popping it into my mouth. Sort of a farewell ritual I guess. On the verge of tears I ingest all of Tom Robbins’ works, then “100 Years of Solitude”, Kundera, Burgess, King, Whitman, Fowles, “The Phantom Tollbooth” …
Oh god.
I have an extremely disconcerting dream in which I am King Solomon and I am dissecting babies to find traces of “sugar and spice” or “snakes and snails” in order to logically determine their gender.
I wake up hungry, knowing there are only two books left. I’ve been in here so long. I fight the hunger for as long as I can, but by dinner . . .
I stand in the middle of a wide carpeted space; in a fury I’ve knocked all the empty shelves over like dominos. I am the only upright thing in the library. In my left hand I hold “The Catcher in the Rye”, in my right, the book from my childhood that I’ve kept throughout. There are tears on my face and I am talking to them.
I have a short and vaguely emotional conversation with Holden who, in the end, convinces me to eat him because “It’d be sort of depressing and all, eating a part of your own childhood - I mean even if it was a damn book and all. I mean it’d just depress the hell outta me.” I nod. He calls me crazy. I agree. Then he says I’m “aces” and then I cannibalize him.
This doesn’t fill me. I realize that I hadn’t really to make the decision in the first place since I was just going to end up eating them both anyway. But just then I remember the vaultish back room! How could it have slipped my mind?
There is a moment’s indecision as I stand in the doorway of this dusty room. I look at the old novels, ancient tomes, first editions, only editions, relics, treasures. I look down at the copy of “Goodnight Moon” in my hand...
This room is a thanksgiving feast of literature and knowledge, I absorb it all both mentally and physically, the rarity of the books making them a delicacy, wonderfully crafted and divine on my palate.
When the library renovation and restoration officials unblock the doors and march in the next day, they do two things:
1. Gasp in shocked disbelief and revulsion.
2. Call the police.
When the police arrive and march smartly in, a few minutes later, they do two things:
1. Blink repeatedly in shocked disbelief and revulsion.
2. Cuff and detain me.
an attempt at comedy
by J. Alexander Genz
Due to growing pressures in my home and personal lives, I decide to take up residence among the dusty back shelves of the local library. Packing a small bag with nothing save the necessities, I wave goodbye to my home. Later, I carry myself and my bag inconspicuously into my new home, breathing the wonderful aged must of comfortable old novels. A book I recognize from my childhood sits on the front shelf, sees me come in, doesn’t see me leave.
I spend a gloriously languid day reading, almost swallowing the stories one by one. Then, when the intercom announces closing time I prepare myself for the difficult task of finding a suitable hiding place in the back. This anxiety proves unnecessary however, as they only make a few cursory searches of the place before turning the lights off and locking the doors.
No one who has never been locked inside a public place by themselves can truly, really fathom the immense sense of freedom it brings you. What was once everyone’s is now no ones but your own, you feel more than privy entitled to explore it from end to end, top to bottom, to discover its secrets. That is what I did my first night in the library, I frolicked in it till dawn. I sat in all the chairs until I found my favourite (the only purple one, all the rest were red). I explored the private reading rooms (and, with a bit of nervousness, the girls bathroom), and finally, the administrative area, which was the real gold mine. It was in there that I found all sorts of private rooms, one for meetings, one for binding and repairing used books, and one especially archaic, vaultish room used for storing the most archaic, vaultable books. I was in heaven studying these until the sun came up, and when it did and the first employees returned to work I discovered no one ever came back here. This would be my room, I decided, definitely.
The next day I fall asleep in my purple chair, exhausted from the night’s revelry. I awake to a kind librarians authoritarian shaking, she tells me it is closing time and escorts me out the door before I am conscious enough to know what is happening.
Damn it.
I am forced to spend the night in the woods behind the building, I tell myself I must sleep, but in the end I have to force myself, and there is much tossing and turning.
I wake up very well rested, however, early the next afternoon. With a yawn and a stretch, I grab my things and march resolutely, almost defiantly, back into the library, mentally daring the librarians to try and make me leave my new home again. For the rest of the day I once more pour over books until hiding time. That night I finish the last of the rations I packed and realise I must go grocery shopping the next day. My sleep is content; a book from my childhood is clutched in my arms.
The next day I go grocery shopping. I have some money and stock up on the necessities: milk, eggs, cheese, bread, fruit, vegetables, chocolate. I sneak into the meeting room during working hours and store these in the mini fridge, counting on the librarians all to assume that it is someone else’s, and no questions will be asked.
The next few weeks I spend here are the happiest of my life. I become a well liked regular and make many friends. I spend my days acquiring more knowledge than I ever have before, and my nights well, acquiring knowledge is really all there is to do, but its one thing that never gets old.
Then the bad thing happens.
I wake up from a dream I’ve been having in which Tom Wolfe is beating the shit out of Truman Capote with a hardback copy of "In Cold Blood" to a weirdly oppressive atmosphere. Yawning and stretching, I shrug this off as residue from my dream and singing the refrain from a Parliament song I wander out to greet the day. Almost immediately I notice the complete silence of the building, which puts me on alert. Then I remember this is a library, slap myself in the head, and call myself an idiot. But unfortunately I am unable to shake the unease that is slowly enveloping me like cotton. It dawns on me that there are two kinds of quiet: library quiet, and too quiet murder quiet. I realize, with sudden perspiration, that this is the latter. It is at about this moment that I notice the complete lack of people and the fact that all the lights are off. With a quiet yelp I race to the door. It is padlocked from the outside and more boarded up! I cannot see out. No one can see in. By this time I am extremely agitated with worry.
A week later the food is gone; I have gone through every invariable stage someone in my position goes through. I spent a while in denial, a few days reasonable waiting for redemption, and then a few more screaming and pounding on things in the hope that someone will hear me. Now I’ve eaten everything and desperation is peering at me from down the nonfiction aisle, rows 901 - 1086. It’s impossible to explain how that place I’d once viewed my paradisic home was contracting around me, the air growing staler every day, everything feeling heavier, my pupils are so wide. There was just no explanation for the complete twist my situation has taken. The water fountains still work, but I am hungry, and by the end of the second week . . .
I sit, pretzel style in the back of the library near the one window where a crack in the boards lets a sliver of light through, a copy of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” in my hands. I watch it silently for a long time, thinking. In my head I see Ayn, her life, her thoughts, her fingers on the keys, her hand gripping a pen. I see her wondering and worrying over this book I hold, see her pout everything into it, perfecting it, making it hers. I see the corners of her mouth turn up and I hear her soft, writer’s sigh as she types the “d” on “end” and leans back to ponder her masterpiece. Slowly I open the book, tear out the first page, and crumple it into my mouth.
I never liked Ayn Rand anyway.
The taste is pretty much as expected. Not delicious, no, not delicious at all. Bland, occasionally bitter, flat. After the first chapter, though, I overcome my initial qualms and, throwing all propriety to the wind begin cramming the pages by the fistful into my face, chewing quickly, swallowing, repeating. The book is done, I laugh, burp, and for some reason faint. I dream of the jungle, where things are - wild things - and I am one of them. In the dream I am one of them.
I wake up hungry. I eat a few non-fiction books, something about origami and “Wall Street for Dummies”. Then I return to yelling and hitting things, as was my previous routine. For lunch I swallow an Anne Coulter novel, then vomit, then eat one of Anne Rice’s - the one about vampires. It satisfies me, and this worries me. I go to sleep early.
I wake up hungry, and eat a dictionary. My stomach hurts. An hour later, I munch on an urban planning brochure while reading something else. When I reach a point in the narrative that displeases me, I rip it out and chew it up, surprised and pleased at the godlike sense of power that surges through me. For dinner, I have a brilliant idea and go in search of the cooking section.
I wake up hungry, with papercuts on my lips.
Is paper really capable of sustaining a human life this long? I look it up in the encyclopedia. I search for paper, digestive system, appendix, and nutrition; none of these tells me what I need, so I eat them all. It has been a week, and I have been eating between meals, what grew from necessity has become an all-consuming pastime. I’ve given up hope for rescue and use my free time playing a game I’ve made up. The game is called Reverse Gutenberg and its main object is to decide which books get saved and which ones melt for eternity in my torturous stomach acids. I’ve long since decided the non fiction books are expendable and the NF aisles are fairly gone over. The shelves sparkle in the darkness like the ribs of a buzzard-picked carcass. Dinner tonight is a tough decision but I finally decide Stephen Hawking’s time has come. I mutter a placating promise that he will “walk the plains of the next life” before sinking my teeth into the cover.
I wake up hungry and quite weak. My throat is sore from the rough edges I’ve been forcing down it for months. I have a nice soft Dr. Seuss for breakfast - the last one. I look around and realize there are no more expendable books left. This is where the challenge begins. Tonight I go hungry for the first time in a while, Tolkien on my right and Lewis on my left. When I wake up, they are gone. I know it is no use trying to save the ones I love. From this point on I begin the practice of taking a book down, reading it cover to cover, and then popping it into my mouth. Sort of a farewell ritual I guess. On the verge of tears I ingest all of Tom Robbins’ works, then “100 Years of Solitude”, Kundera, Burgess, King, Whitman, Fowles, “The Phantom Tollbooth” …
Oh god.
I have an extremely disconcerting dream in which I am King Solomon and I am dissecting babies to find traces of “sugar and spice” or “snakes and snails” in order to logically determine their gender.
I wake up hungry, knowing there are only two books left. I’ve been in here so long. I fight the hunger for as long as I can, but by dinner . . .
I stand in the middle of a wide carpeted space; in a fury I’ve knocked all the empty shelves over like dominos. I am the only upright thing in the library. In my left hand I hold “The Catcher in the Rye”, in my right, the book from my childhood that I’ve kept throughout. There are tears on my face and I am talking to them.
I have a short and vaguely emotional conversation with Holden who, in the end, convinces me to eat him because “It’d be sort of depressing and all, eating a part of your own childhood - I mean even if it was a damn book and all. I mean it’d just depress the hell outta me.” I nod. He calls me crazy. I agree. Then he says I’m “aces” and then I cannibalize him.
This doesn’t fill me. I realize that I hadn’t really to make the decision in the first place since I was just going to end up eating them both anyway. But just then I remember the vaultish back room! How could it have slipped my mind?
There is a moment’s indecision as I stand in the doorway of this dusty room. I look at the old novels, ancient tomes, first editions, only editions, relics, treasures. I look down at the copy of “Goodnight Moon” in my hand...
This room is a thanksgiving feast of literature and knowledge, I absorb it all both mentally and physically, the rarity of the books making them a delicacy, wonderfully crafted and divine on my palate.
When the library renovation and restoration officials unblock the doors and march in the next day, they do two things:
1. Gasp in shocked disbelief and revulsion.
2. Call the police.
When the police arrive and march smartly in, a few minutes later, they do two things:
1. Blink repeatedly in shocked disbelief and revulsion.
2. Cuff and detain me.