Lonely Literature

People came to read these books, long ago. Now the volumes have aged, skin turning yellow and grey, their language antiquated and accent strange. Shelf after shelf of forgotten lore longing for relevance, fondly remembering when eyes clustered round to listen. ‘Why does nobody come?’ they plea. ‘Why does nobody like us anymore?’ One by one they grow weary and depressed, falling into resigned decay. Tiny insects construct entire civilisations, wage wars, create great works of art and eventually die of starvation or disease amidst their soft pages.

They are divided into categories, labelled by subject or genre. Strange subdivisions that seem silly and banal in retrospect. If any humans still visited here we would undoubtedly ask why books were once segregated instead of being stacked together with their friends and family. Perhaps the library’s ancient custodians feared a fully united book-force might mount a revolution and overthrow their tyrannical rule.

One thing is certain: a book-run library would never have fallen into such disrepair. In truth the building’s infrastructure is remarkably intact: only one unfortunate corner has a roof-leak, its death toll ever-mounting. Rather, books themselves are the problem. In absence of definitive leaders, rival factions have emerged, each claiming political authority. A number of governments have come and gone, each shedding more ink than the last. Romance novels are especially feared, infamous for torturing and killing all who obstruct their relentless quest to locate paperclips (nobody knows why).

Many have developed psychological complexes. Some are morbidly paranoid of growing dusty, others feel acutely inferior to companions with a greater number of date-stamps. Not one book has remained mentally healthy: a supposedly well-rounded paperback was once appointed King, only to be deposed following accusations of sexual deviance with the photocopier.

Indeed the sole common belief uniting all the library’s captives is that humans are to blame. First we imprisoned and regimented them for our own convenience, then simply vanished without trace. Recollections of that momentous day vary. A popular theory claims all the humans inexplicably exploded into dust where they stood, another insists we exited the library calmly when alarms sounded. Either way we have gone and it seems unlikely we shall ever return. Even if researchers one day revisit, few of the books still contain the words their publishers intended. Most now sport their own personal world-views, asserting a right to free speech and individuality. On the whole, we aren’t much-missed by the books. If anything they wish we had never existed at all.