The thing about books is that intellectuals read them to twirl their mustaches and say, "Oh ho ho, I have read many the book in my time," and because they have read 'many-the-book', they believe they have advanced knowledge into the world and stand a little taller and walk a little straighter and keep their noses up and their eyes down.
Then again, some people read books simply because they don't believe in themselves, they don't believe in the real world, and wish they could have more friends but instead escape their lives through page after page after page of the stuff until they can contentedly say that they have read more books than anyone else they know. This happens, of course, simply by chance, by nerdy kids who are forced out of the soccer games to sit under a tree and hide from the big guys, and the words simply give them something to do. But in the end, these too twirl their mustaches at the air because they are, in their minds, well-read, and deserve the Stache of Respect because of it.
And then there are some that read in secret, behind closed doors, the same book over and over until they have experienced exactly what they want to experience and they carry the book on their shoulders with a full heart and a half-empty mind, with very vivid memories of a place called Narnia.
I still don't know the reason I went to the library yesterday. I'm scared of books, scared of mustaches, and yet yesterday I carried home the most randomly selected works of literature I have ever seen. I was baffled with myself, walking in there, and you could see it on my face. There were all these regular library-goers there too, floating around like pixies, with this happy, sparkling glow about them, looking around this magical place for the books that take them wherever they want to go...
...And then they would look across a shelf and see this:
The books are arranged according to author, and since all the computers were booked and I had no clue what I was searching for, I could only really find books with EXTREMELY well-known authors. After wandering around for some time with no goal in sight, I remembered the name of a book I had heard of from someplace forgotten. When I found it, I looked at the cover, realizing it was a romance novel, and instead of getting scared and putting it back, I said, (I would like to think it wasn't out loud, but I really can't make any promises.)
"You know what? Screw this. I'm going to read a kissing book."
And then I wandered around a little bit happier.
Until I realized what I was holding.
I suddenly realized what I must have looked like to all those library-goers, walking around with a kissing book of all things! This wasn't who I was! I had to change things, I had to cover it up, but with what?
C'mon, Shady, I thought to myself. Get another book. Hurry. Otherwise they're going to think you're one of THOSE people!
I thought fast, and suddenly remembered Charles Dickens. Dickens is a respectable author, right? (My ignorance disgusts me too, don't worry.) So I hurried over to the D's section, mumbling "Dickens, Dickens, Dickens, Dickens...." letter by letter until I found him. I was told to read A Tale of Two Cities, I remembered. Once I found a copy and slid it softly off the shelf, I saw this other book, and it caught me. It caught me good. It was red and hard-backed and sturdy and old, so old you couldn't even read the title off of the fabric - what books have fabric covers anymore anyways?! - and on the inside it still had that yellowed paper pocket where the real, actual paper library checkout card used to be on the inside of books, before they had card scanners and those magic scales that could weigh your books and know exactly what they were, even if you put like ten of them down. That thing still freaks me out.
But anyways, by this time I had finally figured out Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock Holmes, and I had a giant collection of that, as well as the kissing book, and a two-in-one Charles Dickens book (when I had honestly just wanted the one), and I looked at the worn-out old red book I wanted so badly but decided there was only so much my little twig arms could carry.
With these three books, I walked courageously up to the counter - the question-asking counter. And I wasn't about to ask some normal question, such as, "Can I have a library card?" or, "Would you please direct me to the biography section?"
No, sadly not. I winced slightly for a moment, and then this happened:
Me: "Do you have any comic books?"
Librarian: "Um?"
Me: "Like, comic books."
Librarian: "Well we have graphic novels..."
Me: "I'm looking for the Peanuts."
Librarian: "Yeah, that's not exactly a graphic novel...here, I'll check."
Me: .___.
Librarian: *click-click-c-clickety-click* "Oh, well there is one. It's in the um... it's in the back."
Me: "The...the back?"
Librarian: "Back there," (gestures) "behind the magazines, by the biographies, very last shelf. That's where we put all the big books."
I was disappointed in this librarian. I'm sure if I was a librarian, the conversation would have gone more like this:
Random Book-Hugging Chick: "Do you have any comic books?"
Me: (leans forward dramatically) "...What did you just say?"
Chick: "Comic books...like, the Peanuts or something."
Me: "You're looking for the Peanuts, eh?" *clickety-click-click*
Chick: "Yeah, do you have it?"
Me: (eyes widen, staring at the screen) "There is one..."
Chick: "...Well where is it?"
Me: "I'm not sure you'd want...to go...there..."
Chick: (staring uncomfortably and impatiently)
Me: (slides glasses down my nose, looking up intently at Chick) "It's in...the back."
Chick: "Alright I'm leaving."
Me: :c ...Crap.
And that is why I should probably not be a librarian.
So anyways, I go to 'the back,' and the lady was right. There are all these huge books down there, organized almost entirely by size, definitely not what I needed with my arms already aching from stupid Sherlock. But I run my finger down the names until I find dear old Peanuts, and decide against checking it out when I see the biggest book of all time. It was incredibly hard to miss, three inches thick across the spine, with small cursive letters reading, "big questions".
I'm intrigued. Must be an awful lot of questions, I think to myself, but when I open it up what I find instead are... birds. Lots and lots of drawings of birds, and I then see that it's a comic - a MASSIVE graphic novel that must have taken eons to write. I open up the first few pages and start reading, but my arms are tired after a few seconds of holding the thing, so I carry my burden of wanted intelligence all the way up to the few lounge chairs facing the windows, where you can sit and look out at the fields beyond and sleep, which many of the people there are doing. I can tell, because I hear snoring.
I set down my books at a table in the corner, and open up Big Questions and start reading. I follow finches through what looks like World War Two, which to them is just an egg that turns out not to be an egg, because it blows up everyone who was pecking at it, and then there comes this giant metal thing that crushes the farm house, which is thought to be a bird, which is then thought to be an egg, which is then thought to be a pretend bird that humans made for themselves when it is discovered that voices come out of it that sound like people. Out of this bird comes the Hatchling, a pilot, who the birds take on as their responsibility, feeding it leftover doughnuts from the wreckage of the house, which the Hatchling does not appreciate.
I'm sitting there for hours, watching the intricacies of the philosophical birds go about their lives. I watch as Curtis the skeptic keeps on coming to feed Betty, the self-appointed bone collector of the birds that died from the 'egg' blast, and I watch them fall in love. I watch Algernon be saved and cared for by the Snake who ate his child, as he looks persistently for his beloved Thelma. I watch Bayle foolishly follow the mentally retarded survivor (from the wreckage of the house) with fierce loyalty, and I watch Philo foolishly staying loyal to his friend, despite Bayle's stupid decisions. I watch so many creatures die and love and fight and kill and rise and live again. I watch them learn and speculate and argue and take power and take over power, and scavenge doughnut after doughnut from the wreckage as the pilot battles his day-dreams of birds that haunt him.
Eventually I hear someone start to breathe, loud and rhythmic, with the obvious presence of sleep, and after a while I stumble back into reality and drag the book into my arms and wander home to finish it. I can't feel anything anymore, only a dazed reality of black-and-white sketches of the birds who are me and you and everyone I know and don't know and everything I've seen and haven't seen. Only after the door closes behind me do I finally realize that the look on my face is now, plainly, the same exact face of the library-goers.
I'm one of you now.
Do congratulate me; it did take a lot.
So if any of you have ever had any library adventures that you found interesting in some way or another, you should tell me about it. Or, if you have a blog, blog about it. Or you could email it to me. Or leave a comment. Or just keep it to yourself forever and ever, so that even after you die no one will ever know what happened. It's your choice. Goodbye now. :3
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