Fight With Fire

19

I spin in circles trying to take in everything around me. There are rows and rows of shelves all covered in books. Hundreds, thousands, millions, so many books I can't even count. My mouth is hanging open and my eyes are wide. A whole world I didn't even know existed.

At the back of the theater there was a staircase that led up here. I had never realized how big this building was but now it seems so obvious that there was something up here. I stop spinning and look over to Charlie. He is leaning against a shelf watching me with a smile. A genuine smile which is a very rare sight these days. I smile back with a smile that is so big it almost hurts my face.

"What is this place?" It comes out in one breath very quietly. It seems wrong to talk loudly in this place. Charlie laughs slightly, another rare noise.

"It's called a library. It is a place with books about anything and everything." The explanation seems too simple for a place with so many words, so much information.

"Libary." I say amazed even at the name. For some reason this makes Charlie laugh even more.

"No, you pronounce it library," He says stretching out each syllable. "With an R before and after the A." He shakes him and I wonder why this mistake is so funny to him. I scan the room again.

"Who uses them?" Charlie's expression turns sad again and I wish I hadn't said anything. I wish I could have kept him smiling and laughing even for a few more minutes.

"No one anymore." Even though I know nothing about this room I can understand why it's sad that no one uses them.

"Anymore?" He blinks, his expression empty.

"No one has used this library, or any library, since the council took over." He sees my confused look and takes a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "I'm sure you're surprised to hear about a time before the council. Everyone is." He shakes his head sadly, his hair falling into his eyes. "There is so much we are missing out on. People used to live." He looks me dead in the eyes. "I have so much to explain."

I sit across from Charlie, each of us with a shelf to our backs. I sit listening intently while Charlie describes the past.

A place with so many people all together of all ages. Families where parents had as many children as they wanted and they raised their own children. It makes our current reality, of being taken away at birth, seem horrible. There was something called religion where people believed in a god and a different version of history. People spoke differently in different parts of the world. Charlie called them languages and each had their own rules of speech. Different parts of the world also had different cultures filled with different clothing, food, and music. Now we all wear the same boring clothing, eat all the same food, and we have no music. There were real relationships between friends and family and people played with toys or they played sports with or against their friends. People had so many options for what they could do in life. Couples didn't even have to be a boy and a girl.

Charlie was talking so passionately using big hand gestures. He was building momentum getting more and more excited. The sun had started to shine through the window filling the room with natural light but neither of us wanted to move.

"And there was art! Oh it was so beautiful." Charlie looked around him, got up, ran across the room, pulling a book off a shelf, running back to me, and placing a book in my hands all before I could process what he was doing. He started flipping through the pages showing me different pictures. "Artists drew and painted and took pictures and shaped things and used multiple pictures to make videos. It must have been so amazing to see. There were rooms like this but instead of books, there was art!"

Charlie collected momentum and started talking about music. His eyes danced as if he could hear the music as he described it. It was beautiful listening to him and seeing something he is passionate about. He stops for a moment to catch his breath and I take the opportunity to speak.

"Wow, it sounds perfect." Charlie shoots forward and points at me like I made the perfect point.

"No. It wasn't. They had crime and discrimination based on stupid things like your religion and where you come from and the colour of your skin and who you loved. They were ruining this world with pollution and the population was growing way too big. Some people lived with barely enough food to survive. There was money which seemed to control everyone's lives. But that is part of the beauty. The council has made this 'perfect' society with perfect people but they took away everything we lived for. But they are smart because they also took away everything we died for." Charlie takes a breath and keeps ranting.

"It started when the populations became too big. The world was split into countries which were ruled by governments. The governments started to basically kill people because there were too many. Someone made this special serum. It was supposed to make people into super humans by giving them these 'super powers'. The serum was injected into people but it didn't work the way it was supposed to. The serum moved under the skin and formed a black circle as we now know as an iae. Then the serum gave people one of the powers it was supposed to. You knew which power by the design of the iae. There were some people that it didn't work at all, those are the Oaris, and some people that got some random power that they weren't supposed to. These are the Phiars. The serum spread across the world and anyone that could afford it, bought it. This made the job easier for the governments who killed everyone that didn't have an iae. This wiped out entire countries. The serum is passed down the bloodline so everyone now has them. The remaining people of government created the council and they changed the world into how it is now."

Once he finished I was speechless. I can't speak, I can barely breath. Everything seems so horrible now that I have a different perspective. But I guess that is the point. No one knows how horrible the circumstances are until they can compare them to something else.

"How do you know all of this?" I ask with what little breath I have left. Charlie smiles slightly and gestures around him.

"Books."

Charlie shows me how the library was organised. Turns out there are books for everything. There are even books that are false. Nothing is real and they are written purely for entertainment.

Over the next week when I wake up after my nightmare, I come down and read while Charlie plays his music.

He is becoming more and more distant. Every time he leaves me behind and I can hear but I can't reach him. The notes he plays are duller. The songs he sings are longer. And he's slipping so far that I don't know if anyone can pull him back. The moment he stops you can see everything in his eyes. They are small but they could fit the whole world.

Then they glaze over and I am questioning whether I saw anything at all.