The Blue Book

The seventh chapter. The sky is leaking, help I'm melting.

With an aching back, sore soles and dressed in the same simple brown garment as always before I stood in front of the librarians desk, trying with (may I say) great difficulty to decide which story to devour first.
'....matter with you, he doesn't accept tardiness, you should know that by now, boy! Why didn't you do it sooner? What? Not your fault? How is this...?' A deliberate pause interrupted a young mans engrossed scolding to his apprentice, which I presumed the "boy" would be. The next part of the conversation fell away due to the apprentice's mumbling.
'Yes, of course you can stay, I can't afford loosing my one and only employee, but that doesn't mean I'll magically turn a blind eye towards laziness. Boy, you came to me, asking me to make you excellent. This,' another breather in which I guessed he showed his student the neglecting piece of work. 'Is not excellent.'
'I'm sorry, Kit. It won't happen again.' The boy's accent was thick Irish, I'd say from the middle of the city Dublin.
'What did that poor lad ever do to you?' I smiled with a thin, teasing smile. In my hands I held a grey book with yellow pages with white writing in a language I'd never heard of. The face of the man in front of me was not the face I'd expected. It was the one from the white road, the one who'd labeled me insane. He had no right to barge in to this newfound sanctuary of mine.
'You're her.'He said eloquently. I'd never had loss for words, so I quickly responded;
'I must let you down, Mr. Bookman, I'm no one but myself.'
'Alright, but the ward.'
Rude.
'Mr... Glovin? Is that your guardian?' He looked, not at me, but at the point behind me, at the bookshelf.
'You know Mr. Golovin?'
'Golovin, that's it. Well, yes and no. He's a customer of mine.'
'Mr. Golovin is interested in literature?' Somehow I found that hard to believe. I mean, yes, he is some sort of genius and he'd read countless and countless books for me, but that had been, well, for me. He never seemed to enjoy them but here, in this strange collection of books were only poems and fiction, no science, nothing proved, no nothing. And yet, everything.
'No, no...' The man chuckled. The thought of Jeremijah sitting in a corner with a book in his hands seemed to amuse him as wellfor some reason. 'He's been here for that necklace. Are you here to collect?'
'Necklace?'
'Yes, the one in silver.'
'I thought you were a librarian.'
'Yeah, I am, but only for myself and another boy from a small estate not far from here. I was just about to ask you if you were lost, since, well, nobody is really supposed to be here but me. This collection is my life's work, I take care to who's allowed to see it.'
'But you're also a jeweller.'
'Yeah, but that was my fathers life's work, which I have continued.'
'So you don't really enjoy this business?'
'It's too quiet.'
I didn't ask what he meant by that since I knew nothing about a smith's daily routines, or a librarian's for that matter.
'So are you?' He said.
'If I'm a jeweller?' I asked, which he chuckled at.
'No, are you lost?' He said.
To me, this was a very loaded question, depending on his definition of "lost." But, yes, I suppose I am. I don't know where I am, I have but a small, faint idea of who I am, but it's nothing much I could be able to present if anyone should ask. I don't quite know which people I know, now that I come to think about it, I don't exactly know anybody. There's Jeremija of course, but I still don't know how I'm connected to him or which roll he has played in my story thus far. Existentially I might as well be running though a giant black tunnel, not knowing where it's heading or when it's supposed to come to an end. Geographically I'm as lost as a guppy ashore. Which one he was referring to was for me to find out. But I'm lost whichever side of the coin you look at. Now I had a small dilemma in front of me. Do I tell him that I am most definitely lost without a clue of where to go next, or do I tell him not to bother since I can take care of myself? I certainly wanted to believe that I could care for myself, but truth to be told, I was lost. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew that this was quite the defining moment for which kind of person I was to become. Would I ask for help? Should I? Could I?And if I did, would he be able to provide it? He obviously has obligations here, wherever here is. Or do I walk away, and solve it on my lonesome? It was clear to me which one I preferred. I wanted not having to rely on anybody, I wished that I could escape my state of confusion.
So far I've never done anything modestly, I've never had loss of words and I've never been one to divide things in simply black or white, which is why my answer was this;
'I believe so, yes, but I'd like to try to solve it under my steam, and not yours Mr. Bookman and Smith.'
He made some protesting noise before finding the proper way to correct me. 'Jeweller,' the man said, 'I'm... I'm a jeweller, not a smith. And that is most surely not my name. But I'm glad to hear it miss ...' He trailed off in the most annoying manner of all time. I hate it when people do that.
'My name?'
Not only did he take frequent breaks in his questions but he also asked all the wrong ones. What do I say? What should I say? My name? Nobody had given it to me yet. Nobody had precisely given me a handbook or a kind word to help me along the way. Nobody had given me much of anything. I don't even know what is supposed to be my way. Do I even have one? And what if somebody stood in the way of it? Stood in the way of my way? What then? What do I do? What do I say? Where do I go?
'Are you sure you're okay? You're by far the strangest visitor I've had in here, but still...'
'I'm your strangest visitor? You must have a very disappointing job.'
'You don't even know me, you know, you won't even tell me your name.'
'I don't know.' I admitted.
'You can trust me.'
'No, Mr. Bookman,' I said and shot forward my chin, 'I don't know.'
His hands sank along with his arms to his sides like he'd been standing like that for days and no longer could keep his hands up. He took a step back with so many emotions playing tricks on his face I got tired just by trying to name them all.
'What?' His voice was easy enough to read. It was laced in pain. Not for me, I don't think. But I'd triggered some human part of him that wasn't masked in the forced politeness he'd so far offered me. 'How can you not remember?' He asked.
'How should I know? I don't remember.'
'Do you know anything? Anything at all?'
'I .. of course I know things. Ask me anything you want.'
'Sorry. We should maybe get you to a hospital?'
Annoyed I abruptly interrupted him and waved my hand in front of me. For the first time, I created a deep furrow between my eyebrows.
'What's happening?' Perplexed and horrified I left Mr. Bookman behind me and carelessly put my unused, soft hands on the middle-sized window that displayed jewellery done by skilled, patient hands to passing walkers who wandered the streets.
'What are you looking at?'
'Tell me what it is!' I demanded.
'I should love to know as much as you, what are you looking at?'
'Come!' I sprinted down the stairs and came to a stop at the threshold of the man's library's entrance, with one hand at the doorframe to reassure myself with the feeling of holding on to something steadfast that wouldn't fall apart because of this strange, silent attack. The other one I stretched out to get a taste of whatever it was. One of the quiet, sneaking attacker hit my hand, but it didn't hurt. I felt odd, not pain. I raised my finger to my eyes and examined the thing. It wasn't round, exactly, more like a tiny transparent globe that ran down my index finger and before I could catch it, it fell of my clean, short nail, only to join the rest of the fiends at the ground. There were thousands and thousand of them, and they kept on coming, everywhere, as far as my eyes could see, all I saw were small objects plunging down from an angry sky.
'You're crazy. For Christ sake. It's just the rain, come one, please come the fuck over here or you'll get sick.'
He stood right behind me and a big part of me knew he was right. I could step up again and from this day on try to avoid getting soaked. But why should I? Why wouldn't everyone want to feel like this? Why wouldn't you want to be here?
'It's against my very nature and frankly my gut- feeling to keep calling you "miss"'or "you", and it seems parting ways isn't working for us, so what should I call you?'
'You want to give me a name?'
'You don't have to keep it, just for now, but yes. It's a basic human right.'
'I'm human too?' I burst out happily. He thought I was joking. Haha, the joke's on him.
'So, what do you want?'
A smile played on the corners of my mouth, I dipped my head back, gazing up at nothing at all, then I refocused on Mr. Bookman.
'I have no idea.'

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