CW 3: The Public Library

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. If you would like something written especially for you, please consider sponsoring me.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

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The Public Library

for Graeme Williams. Thank you for supporting my work and Clarion West.

“What did you do before?” the soldier said.

“I was an administrative assistant,” Mary said.

“Camp librarian,” he said. “Military and community. Liase with the teachers and commander’s personal admin. Next.”

“Wait…. you have books?”

He gave her an Are you stupid? look. She flinched. Of course there were no books. Shakespeare was the extra lining in your clothes that kept you warm. Romance novels lit your cookfires. Jane Austen wiped the diarrhea from your child’s bottoms. And the pages of all those self-help books made great stuffing for the chinks in a drafty barracks.

“Figure it out,” he said. “Next.”

She stepped out of line.

When she was six, her family had taken a beach vacation to northern Florida. It rained most every day, and there were giant spiders under the cottage porch. They didn’t scare Mary, but her brother Norton freaked the fuck out. That’s what Yessir called it, when Nordy stood red-faced and ashamed on the carpet in the small living room, and Mary and her mother sat at the kitchen table as they had been told to do while her stepfather put Nordy back on the right path.

“You freaked the fuck out over an insect!”

“Yes, sir,” Nordy said, in such a low voice that Mary could hardly hear it. She leaned close to her mom and said in a whisper, “It’s not an insect. It’s an arach… ara…”

“Arak-nid,” her mom whispered back. And as Yessir ranted at Nordy in the next room, What’ll you do when the terrorists come for your mother and sister, you little faggot?, her mom kept going. “That’s right. From the Latin arachnida. That kind is called a wolf spider. They hunt instead of building webs. They eat bugs.”

Mary thought of Nordy standing scared under Yessir’s bug-eyed fury. “I like spiders,” she said.

“Me, too,” her mom said. “You know, once there was a very wonderful spider called Charlotte. She was the kind that builds webs, and she built her web in a farmyard.” And her mom kept talking, telling her about Charlotte, until Yessir stopped shouting and sent Nordy to his room.

Why was she thinking of Charlotte now? Why was she remembering something that had happened forty years ago, before the spiders of war hunted each other down into nuclear winter and it seemed that all the world had gone to ground in camps like this one, and all the books had become just paper, and the internet was something they all hoped they’d get back one day when the armies were done with it?

And then she knew.

When she explained to the commander’s personal assistant what she wanted, he gave her a pencil and single, precious piece of paper that had only been used a couple times before: there was still space left. Then she began moving among the camp, meeting people, making tiny notes when she needed, but mostly trying to memorize everything she could. A good librarian didn’t need a catalogue of her own resources. A good librarian knew where to find the information.

Five days later, she set up a desk in a corner of the administrative barracks, along with as many tables and chairs or stools or boxes as she could commandeer. A practiced young man with a paint sprayer stencilled letters on the wall behind her. “Put it on the outside, too,” she told him. “So everyone can see it.”

And so he did. Public Library.

It took about twenty minutes for the first civilian to approach. He was maybe thirty-five; his hands were blistered as if he’d been using unaccustomed tools. She imagined a shovel or a saw.

He said cautiously, “Is this the library?”

“Yes, it is,” Mary said. “I’m the librarian. How can I help you?” She hoped it didn’t come out sounding too much like Oh my God I hope this works.

“Umm… do you have the Harry Potter books?” His face was tight in the way of someone already braced for the bad news, already feeling like a fool.

Mary said, “Can you come back in about an hour?” And watched his expression transform. It really was true, she thought. People’s faces could light up.

The guy came back in an hour. With seven other people, all of whom looked both hopeful and deeply suspicious. She led them to a table where a young woman of about twenty waited. “Have a seat, everyone,” Mary said. Then she nodded to the young woman.

“Okay,” the woman said. She looked at the group. “Okay.” She took a breath. “Once there was a boy named Harry Potter who lived with his uncle and aunt and obnoxious cousin, a real little shit. I mean…”

“No,” said the guy. “He was a shit. So…”

“So they actually made Harry sleep in a tiny little room under the stairs…”

Mary went back to the table, and turned her head so that the human book and the human readers would not see her cry.