(My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art. Also, you can find more about the A to Z Blog Challenge here.)
The librarian stood on the top margin and checked her gear. Rope firmly anchored to the arm of the desk lamp above, harness buckled completely, carabiners locked. She leaned over and peered down along the rope dropping away into the text below. It was dense, but she could see the light sparkling off the words deep in the story. There would be treasure there, without doubt.
Cautiously she backed over the first line and began to lower herself into the book, knowing that once the story closed over her head she wouldn’t be able to come back up until she’d found what she needed …
From word to word she felt her way, lowering herself with her rope until she reached the bottom. She stepped out of the harness and left the rope hanging for her return. Far overhead the light of the desk lamp shone like a distant sun, but down so far into the book the words glimmered with their own light.
She made her way sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, following the twists and turns of the story. This one was magical already, beckoning her forward toward its heart. As she went she collected ideas, picking them gently from the text and wrapping them in tissue paper before laying them in her pack. She would share them out to the people in the world outside, something bright to put away in their hearts: an invitation, a key, a talisman, a portal. Seeds to overcome the drought.
It grew brighter and brighter as the librarian followed the corridor, for deep as she was, there were windows now in the walls. Some windows peeked invitingly into small, intimate chambers, while others gave out onto wide vistas as if gazing down from a mountainside. And opposite the windows were mirrors, catching the light and doubling it so that every word flashed and sparkled with promise. She strode more quickly now as the excitement of the story took hold…
I had a lot of fun imagining the metaphor of physically climbing down into a book. I even consulted with my rock-climbing brother to get one of the later sections right! For our librarian, alas, there’s about to be a problem… But don’t worry, librarians can always find a way! You’ll just have to read the story to discover how she gets back out of the book, and what she discovers when she once again reaches the outside world.
If you want to know the process of making this rubber block print of a fantasy library, you can read all about it at the post A Glimpse of Paradise.
Marketing Moral: Once you’ve requested that the library get my book, and it’s finally available, be sure to check it out, and encourage others to check it out, too. Libraries will de-acquisition books that never get signed out. Plus, right now it’s especially important that we support our local libraries in their work to make books available to everyone.
When was the last time you visited your local library?
[Picture: A Glimpse of Paradise, rubber block print (2011) by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]
1 comment:
I love this! I was a librarian back in the 20th Century. I do love the imagery of rapelling down into the content of a book. Wonderful! I also love your "call to arms" to support our libraries in these times of crisis. I found a good quotation in, of all places, a computer game: "Beware of him who would control your access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master." It's from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I will look for your book. I gotta read the rest of that story!
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