The Library of Antiquities

[lrig_rorrim]

He’s sitting at the desk, staring out at the stark lines of the landscape through the window, wishing it were strange to him, that something different would happen today. The sky is the same flat dull silver, the ground the same dusty blue. There is very little vegetation on Semavall, but he keeps a cutting of a droshi plant on his desk, as a

Comments

[halfshellvenus]

I really liked this interlude to the other story. The occasional boredom and frustrations are small compared to the overwhelming sense of being lost and only occasionally surfacing long enough into full consciousness to examine the how/where/why. The librarian doesn't always remember what he's forgotten, or forget what he has remembered, but there is a peaceful, limbo-like quality to his story.

And I can't help wondering if who has arrived to relieve him is simply the younger version of himself in a long, long looping arc of time.

*whispers* It's 'lying,' not 'laying.' People/hens lay other things down/out/across. When they are at repose, they lie (are lying).

[lrig_rorrim]

(Ah, technology. My tablet just lost the reply I had typed up for you. Oh well!)

Yay, I'm really glad you liked this one! That sense of surfacing, of being lost in a familiar place and driftless in time, is absolutely part of what I was going for with this story. And I did indeed intend for the new guy to be him, but younger. *grins* It delights me that you picked up on that.

Good catch on the laying/lying thing - I will fix that after the poll closes (though honestly, I don't know how many folks will bother reading all the way over to here, much less mind if I fix an error like that, but it doesn't hurt me to just wait for tonight).