Experiment

nineteen

The library is empty as I walk inside with Ala following just beside me, sending the smell of not only new but also old books into my nose as I stop just before the door to take it all in. Like the outside, the inside is just as large as it is beautiful. The floor is made entirely of deep brown wood flooring with deep yet red carpets resting just beneath each large bookshelf that seems to overflow with books of every genre. In the middle of the room where all of the tall bookshelves part from one another there is a group of large deep brown tables with matching chairs that have a matching deep velvety red to their cushions as the carpet that rests beneath them. Around the tables there are brown leather recliners that sit slightly further away from the rest of the chairs with smaller tables in front of, or on either side of them, and above the tables is a large and very beautiful chandelier that hangs in the air making gentle white flecks of light glint on the walls and bookshelves all around the room as the sun shines in from the large windows resting just behind it. It is even more beautiful on the inside than it is on the outside.

Alas large side brushes along my own as he pull my thoughts away from the beauty of the room and onto the seemingly endless supply of books around me. Unlike most people I do not hold a preference as to what it is that I read. I can read about wars from thousands of years ago and hold the same interest that I would feel if I were to read a book that Sarah J. Maas had written. It is one of the side effects from being in that mans hold for as long as I was.

I push the thoughts of that man, of that place, out of my mind as I turn into one of the aisles and allow the tips of each finger on my right hand to trail along the spines of the books that I walk past. I can feel how Ala watches me from where he sits at the end of the aisle behind me only to move to the next to do the same as I look through the books surrounding me. Each spine differs in touch, some are soft and wide while others are slightly rough or even smooth and thin enough to fit only one of my long fingers if I were to put it against it. I stop when I step into the seventh aisle only to feel dust shift beneath my fingertips as I trail them along each of the books, and when I look up to take the book in I feel my already tense body grow taught just as my cold blood begins to freeze within my veins. For a moment I only stare at the thick book before me, beneath all of the dust rests an icy blue cover with golden writing and silver designs all along the side where my fingertips had touched it. My hand seems to lift on its own as I slowly pull the book off of the shelf only to gently lay it in the crook of my left arm before I begin to walk once more, trailing my fingers over the spines to see which one will call to me next.

By the time I go back to one of the lone leather chairs I have over twenty books piled along the side table and an extra resting within my lap. Each book holds a different genre, each one of a different age or culture but it does not matter to me as I gently pull the cover of the first book back and begin to gently trail my pointer finger and thumb over the page taking in the feel of the paper before I turn it to the prologue and do the same thing as I read. This is not the first book I had picked up, in fact it is the thirty seventh book that I had found in the last row of bookshelves on the left side of the room and unlike the first book I had taken this one it is not based on true events, or culture, but a planet unlike the one I live in. It is a planet full of deserted lands and people that do not speak as the people do now, and even though their speech slightly annoys me and their ways of things make little to no sense, the book, Dust Lands, is still able to catch and hold my attention, and before I know it I am on the second with the first resting on the empty side table to my right.

By the time one of the large wooden doors open to the library sending soft laughter, deep chuckles, and the overly familiar smell of Mr. Williams into the large room, over half of my thirty seven books rest on the table just to my right while on my left there are no more than four untouched books resting beside me. Yet now with both my teacher and the librarian in the room half of my attention shifts to them as the instincts from all of the training I have been put through forces me to listen to each step they take through the room as they walk to a back room allowing the much smaller door to close behind them. I cannot stop myself from listening to the womans soft voice as she tells my teacher what she is in need of putting onto the shelves, I can hear how boxes scrape across the floor as he begins to lift them into his strong arms before he walks out of the room to set them on top of one of the large tables resting a few yards to my left only to go back and get more. Because my hearing is so sensitive, I am able to hear the sound of the womans heartbeat quicken past the sound of her shocked squeal and even past the harsh yet slightly quieted thud of the box as it falls to the carpeted floor at her feet making the books inside of it spill onto the floor before her.