Shhh! Scribbler at Work

Words on Fire

[prompt: 'package' 2/11/18]

"Take us! Take us too! We beg you!"

The creaking and groaning was more than pitiful, ranging through horrendous levels. But strain as they would, the bookshelves could not disengage from their sturdy shackles. Their beloved homes were their bastilles - the reason they remained in tragically empty and lonesome bookshops when the ransacking of their shelves was complete.

"We'd rather die quickly on a funeral pyre along with our beloved bosom buddies - our books, than be left to rot amongst cobwebs and emptiness," they cried. But nobody heard.

Bizarre, but the first vandals were university students, destroying upwards of 25,000 books portraying an 'un-German' spirit. Supposedly these were all they would destroy, but that quickly deteriorated into a free-for-all as the bonfires raged ever higher. Within days, 34 university towns across Germany had annihilated countless classics and set the pattern for bookshelves to be stripped across the land.

"Without ALL our books, we are nothing," the bookshelves cried in agony. But nobody listened. All fell on deaf ears surprisingly, as the iron helmets covering the military perpetrators' heads didn't come anywhere close to those orifices. It was a cry heard only in the hearts and souls of dedicated book-lovers. Tragically, not one of those heartless vandals protested or refused to burn the books in the pogrom of literature that lit the German skies that memorable night. The new path to be trodden by countless callous collaborators for years to come had been set.

The book shelves mourned the sparse collection now spread out across their barren lengths. It was small comfort to consider it had all happened before - over and over again throughout history. If they could have, they would have pointed to a quote from Wikipedia:

In some cases, the destroyed works are irreplaceable and their burning constitutes a severe loss to cultural heritage. Examples include the burning of books and burying of scholars under China's Qin Dynasty (213–210 BC), the burning of the Library of Alexandria (c. 49), the obliteration of the Library of Baghdad (1258), the destruction of Aztec codices by Itzcoatl (1430s), and the burning of Maya codices on the order of bishop Diego de Landa (1562).

They may well have added - "WHEN will you learn Man is a storyteller - has been from the beginning of Time? That's how the legends are born and persist through the history of forever. What he doesn't know for sure, he imagines. Burn that if you can!"

And those WWII barbarians did try - particularly on June 21, the summer solstice, a traditional date for bonfire celebrations in Germany. They didn't understand the Nazi salute they gave at these gatherings was destined to be acknowledgment of a celebration of failure in the long term. Those wannabe murderers of human hope simply would not understand that you can NEVER destroy Man's indomitable courage; his imagination and creativity. It's a package deal, the human spirit - an indivisible pact between reader and writer that none can tear asunder.