PT5: The Wheel of Fortune
Title: The Library
Story Type: PT Original
Wordcount: 1122
Summary: Knowledge is dull with nothing to use it on.
Notes: I found this nifty online typewriter program and I decided to try it out and I accidentally commited Project Tarot. So...guess that's back.
The Library.
The shelves in the library are infinite. There are times, in the loneliest hours, when they can almost see an edge, an ending to the eternal stretch of books, but invariably there are just more shelves.
They have not read all of the books. They are the guardian of the knowledge, not its intended recipient. They were not created to read.
They read anyway. They read the stories and the histories, the secrets and the tales, the laws and the crimes. They will often snatch a book at random and, with a flex of their massive wings and a stirring of dust eddies, take it to their preferred chair to read it.
The dust is a new addition. Sometime in the last six centuries or so, they read that dust is meant to accumulate on untended surfaces, and the dust has coated the library ever since.
They enjoy the diaries, the hidden and secret thoughts lurking in human hearts. All of the books are about humans. Even the ones about animals and stars and sedimentary rocks. They were penned or dreamed or mused into existence by humans. Even they, in some way, were conjured by human thought.
Time means nothing in the library, not really. It is as ageless as it is new. Ancient and fresh at once. It is precisely the age of a thought.
They are called many things. Guardian. Watcher. Forgotten. The form and name they like best is "angel". Theriel, when they are feeling specific.
And Theriel knows what it is to feel. For almost a millenium they devoured stories and histories about love and hate, about fear and passion, about joy and despair. They have made a study of emotions and decisions and doubts. They fancy, in their whimsical moments, that they could almost be human themselves.
They have never seen God, if they truly are an angel of the Lord. They blinked into existence amongst the shelves and the books and there they have dwelt ever since. They feel the others, though. This is how they know what they are, and what they are meant to do. They feel the other angels, and what they do outside the doorless walls of the library.
They feel the fall, and wonder if they should weep for a brother (sister?) they had never met. They feel the war, raging in what some of the books call Heaven. But so, too, they dream visions of powerful arms hurling lightning and chariots pulling suns across simultaneous skies. They see glimpses of jackal-headed guides and fearsome women with many arms. And so they do not know which story spun them into being.
They know so little. Theirs is not the luxury of faith, because hundreds of faiths, thousands, pour out of the pages in millions of tiny pictures and symbols, etching their meanings into Theriel's mind, and for a time Theriel is a mighty ox, until they tire of the tall shelves ever out of reach. And then Theriel becomes a bird, an eagle, and flies ever higher and higher. And then Theriel is a man, but the man is plauged with pain and fear and so Theriel becomes a woman, but finds that nothing significant has really changed, and so becomes a lion, and sleeps.
Theriel tries on and discards forms on a whim, always returning at some point to the sexless body and giant wings with which they began. The Angel body, with the Angel mind, and the loneliness ceases to sting so deeply.
The Angel Theriel can hear the books singing.
Outside the library, a battle wages on. Theriel cannot remember which battle it is, though if they were inclined to look it up, they would doubtless remember the victor and the vanquished. Theriel knows all the wars, when it suits them to remember. The patterns were once fascinating, but the repetition has long since become dull. The outcome matters little, affecting only the thickness of the spines of the books that follow.
Theriel has recently taken up a new conciet. Clothing. They have read many books on the subject, and have taken to fashoining ornate slippers for themselves in soft green fabric with curly toes. They also like the feeling of light muslin robes in a variety of colors which pool about their body when they sit. And spectacles, which they have read make one look smart, particularly when reading. Theriel does little apart from reading.
Theriel catches themself, sometimes, wishing for someone else to comment on their spectacles. There is no one. There is only ever no one. Theriel fashions a voice, weary of the silence, and speaks to the books. But they only sing back, the songs Theriel has learned by rote long before now.
For a few decades, or perhaps seconds, it is unclear, Theriel experiments with madness, and discovers the cathartic pain of laughter. They make it a point to laugh at least once a day.
Nothing is new in the library. The books have always been there, even the ones just now written. Theriel has had time, perhaps, to read them all. Though they have not done. The library fluxuates and remains the same, always. Theriel expects no different.
And so they are not expecting a hand, a strange hand, to fall on their shoulder. They are not expecting to flinch from their book, this one a treatise on biological engineering in beetles, to see an arm belonging to someone apart from themself. They are not expecting a change, a definite sign that what was has given way to what is, and that time has advanced. They are not expecting memories of an empty library to fall before the experience of a library shared.
The stranger is not an angel, like Theriel. The stranger looks human, looks like what many of the books call a female, with wide shoulders and wide hips and a bosom far rounder and softer than the one Theriel had conjured for themself when they were a woman.
"You are?" Theriel asks a question.
"I am." Theriel recieves an answer.
"How?"
"There's far too much dust in here, don't you think?"
"Did I make you?"
"Do you think you could?"
Theriel shakes their head. "I only read."
"Then you are a patron, and there is your answer."
"Patron?"
The woman, Theriel's wish-woman, smiles.
"Of course. This is a library, old young one."
"It is the library." Theriel tells her.
She nods. "Of course. And surely you must have read by now. Every library needs a librarian."
Theriel thinks. And considers. And nods.
"Yes." They say.
"Yes, I suppose I do."
-Fin-
Story Type: PT Original
Wordcount: 1122
Summary: Knowledge is dull with nothing to use it on.
Notes: I found this nifty online typewriter program and I decided to try it out and I accidentally commited Project Tarot. So...guess that's back.
The Library.
The shelves in the library are infinite. There are times, in the loneliest hours, when they can almost see an edge, an ending to the eternal stretch of books, but invariably there are just more shelves.
They have not read all of the books. They are the guardian of the knowledge, not its intended recipient. They were not created to read.
They read anyway. They read the stories and the histories, the secrets and the tales, the laws and the crimes. They will often snatch a book at random and, with a flex of their massive wings and a stirring of dust eddies, take it to their preferred chair to read it.
The dust is a new addition. Sometime in the last six centuries or so, they read that dust is meant to accumulate on untended surfaces, and the dust has coated the library ever since.
They enjoy the diaries, the hidden and secret thoughts lurking in human hearts. All of the books are about humans. Even the ones about animals and stars and sedimentary rocks. They were penned or dreamed or mused into existence by humans. Even they, in some way, were conjured by human thought.
Time means nothing in the library, not really. It is as ageless as it is new. Ancient and fresh at once. It is precisely the age of a thought.
They are called many things. Guardian. Watcher. Forgotten. The form and name they like best is "angel". Theriel, when they are feeling specific.
And Theriel knows what it is to feel. For almost a millenium they devoured stories and histories about love and hate, about fear and passion, about joy and despair. They have made a study of emotions and decisions and doubts. They fancy, in their whimsical moments, that they could almost be human themselves.
They have never seen God, if they truly are an angel of the Lord. They blinked into existence amongst the shelves and the books and there they have dwelt ever since. They feel the others, though. This is how they know what they are, and what they are meant to do. They feel the other angels, and what they do outside the doorless walls of the library.
They feel the fall, and wonder if they should weep for a brother (sister?) they had never met. They feel the war, raging in what some of the books call Heaven. But so, too, they dream visions of powerful arms hurling lightning and chariots pulling suns across simultaneous skies. They see glimpses of jackal-headed guides and fearsome women with many arms. And so they do not know which story spun them into being.
They know so little. Theirs is not the luxury of faith, because hundreds of faiths, thousands, pour out of the pages in millions of tiny pictures and symbols, etching their meanings into Theriel's mind, and for a time Theriel is a mighty ox, until they tire of the tall shelves ever out of reach. And then Theriel becomes a bird, an eagle, and flies ever higher and higher. And then Theriel is a man, but the man is plauged with pain and fear and so Theriel becomes a woman, but finds that nothing significant has really changed, and so becomes a lion, and sleeps.
Theriel tries on and discards forms on a whim, always returning at some point to the sexless body and giant wings with which they began. The Angel body, with the Angel mind, and the loneliness ceases to sting so deeply.
The Angel Theriel can hear the books singing.
Outside the library, a battle wages on. Theriel cannot remember which battle it is, though if they were inclined to look it up, they would doubtless remember the victor and the vanquished. Theriel knows all the wars, when it suits them to remember. The patterns were once fascinating, but the repetition has long since become dull. The outcome matters little, affecting only the thickness of the spines of the books that follow.
Theriel has recently taken up a new conciet. Clothing. They have read many books on the subject, and have taken to fashoining ornate slippers for themselves in soft green fabric with curly toes. They also like the feeling of light muslin robes in a variety of colors which pool about their body when they sit. And spectacles, which they have read make one look smart, particularly when reading. Theriel does little apart from reading.
Theriel catches themself, sometimes, wishing for someone else to comment on their spectacles. There is no one. There is only ever no one. Theriel fashions a voice, weary of the silence, and speaks to the books. But they only sing back, the songs Theriel has learned by rote long before now.
For a few decades, or perhaps seconds, it is unclear, Theriel experiments with madness, and discovers the cathartic pain of laughter. They make it a point to laugh at least once a day.
Nothing is new in the library. The books have always been there, even the ones just now written. Theriel has had time, perhaps, to read them all. Though they have not done. The library fluxuates and remains the same, always. Theriel expects no different.
And so they are not expecting a hand, a strange hand, to fall on their shoulder. They are not expecting to flinch from their book, this one a treatise on biological engineering in beetles, to see an arm belonging to someone apart from themself. They are not expecting a change, a definite sign that what was has given way to what is, and that time has advanced. They are not expecting memories of an empty library to fall before the experience of a library shared.
The stranger is not an angel, like Theriel. The stranger looks human, looks like what many of the books call a female, with wide shoulders and wide hips and a bosom far rounder and softer than the one Theriel had conjured for themself when they were a woman.
"You are?" Theriel asks a question.
"I am." Theriel recieves an answer.
"How?"
"There's far too much dust in here, don't you think?"
"Did I make you?"
"Do you think you could?"
Theriel shakes their head. "I only read."
"Then you are a patron, and there is your answer."
"Patron?"
The woman, Theriel's wish-woman, smiles.
"Of course. This is a library, old young one."
"It is the library." Theriel tells her.
She nods. "Of course. And surely you must have read by now. Every library needs a librarian."
Theriel thinks. And considers. And nods.
"Yes." They say.
"Yes, I suppose I do."
-Fin-