The Librarian

“Ninety-five cents, please,” the Librarian said, expertly scanning the long overdue novel. She glanced at the cover. On Writing, by Steven King. “He was a genius,” she said, her voice quiet and reserved.

The Girl nodded, dropping the coins into the Librarian’s hand and then staring with awe at the high ceiling. “Wasn’t he, though? There’s one in every generation.” The Girl was pudgy, speckled with a layer of acne, and yet her bluish eyes shone with a powerful light.

“Has this generation found its genius?”

The Girl smiled slyly and took her tattered green notebook from the counter. She’d been carrying it under her arm along with the book when she’d walked through the door. Now, she held it protectively to her chest. “Not yet,” she said with an arrogant hopefulness.

She placed a hand on the bicep of the Girl, who flinched slightly at the unexpected contact with a human being. But then she smiled. “I wish you the best of luck,” the Librarian said warmly, and the Girl blushed.

“Thank you,” she said.

“We’re closing now.”

“Oh, of course. Goodnight.” As the automatic glass door slid closed behind the Girl, releasing her into the dark and moonless night, the Librarian took a breath and allowed the artificial smile to fade.

She’d seen several works by the Girl in local magazines, and in an enormous anthology celebrating the writing of middle- and high school aged children around the region. One of her little nephews had been in the forty-dollar book. She thought it was a scam to get proud parents’ money, but she’d smiled and congratulated the boy just the same. The Girl was good, especially for her age, but she was no Steven King. She was more like a young—well….She let the thought end and prepared to arm the lock on the front door. Just then she saw an old friend coming up the walk, and her smile returned.

“Jess,” she said, welcoming her friend in before swiping the Electronic Master Key—a rectangular plastic card—through the lock.

“Cleo,” the other woman said with a smile. She hadn’t seen her in—oh, it must have been a year now. She could have been wrong. Her memory escaped her more and more lately. Jess looked good for a woman of sixty, much better than Cleo herself. Erratic weight changes throughout the Librarian’s life had taken care of her youth by what should have been her prime. “You look wonderful,” Jess said. The lie could have been caught in her voice from a mile away, but her intentions were good.

“You, too, Jess. You, too.”

She led her friend to the lounge, where only employees were allowed, and poured the remainder of this evening’s coffee into two off-white mugs. She brought the beverages to the cocktail table.

“How have you been?” the Librarian asked.

“I’ve reached another pay raise over at the school. Seems I’ll be able to pay for Delilah’s college fund all on my own.” Delilah was Jess’ granddaughter, Cleo was almost sure—she fought to remember clearly.

“That’s good, good.”

There was a long silence between them, in which Cleo coughed, feeling her lungs slightly burn. She’d have to go to the doctor soon. She thanked heaven for her medical coverage. At her age, and at her weight—at the moment, she was just over two-hundred pounds, not too bad—she took advantage of it frequently. It was a good thing she’d found a stable position at such a young age. She’d been Librarian for the county for close to forty years now. She felt tears well in her eyes.

“Is there something wrong?” Jess asked calmly.

“I’m just—sad for the library. You know they’re ready to do away with them soon, make it all automated. I would have approved of the idea when we were in high school, just for the sake of approving of it. I always used to say, ‘The old people are only frightened by change because they’ve never experienced it. But we grew up in the two-thousands, in a time founded by and existent on change, and so it won’t shock us even when they start inserting identity chips into the brains of every baby,’ but you know what, Jess?”

For the first time, Jess looked slightly horrified, and was a few seconds in answering. “What?”

“When I saw the article which said they’d passed the law, I gasped.”

“So did I,” Jess said. “And I cried.”

She paused. “Me, too.”

Once again, they turned away in silence.

“I used to dream of one day stocking this library with my own novels,” Cleo continued.

Jess smiled lightly. “Didn’t we all?”

“But I saw it so vividly, as if it were only a matter of time….”

“There’s always time,” Jess said, sounding far from hopeful. Cleo could only bring herself to nod.

“I have to get going,” Jess said after several more long seconds.

Cleo stood, feeling a wave of dizziness. She should never have had that extra cup of coffee—it was horrible for her blood pressure. Jess was still nimble, slim, with dyed brown hair which suited her face well. She led Jess to the back door, which could be opened only from the inside.

Cleo wished her luck with her career, with her husband and her various grandchildren, and then allowed the door to close behind her. Soon, she would leave through that door as well.

She thought of the girl again. Damn, how she reminded Cleo of herself! The tears threatened again, so she thought of Jess’ grandchildren instead. They ranged in age from two to fifteen, if she remembered correctly. The fifteen-year-old, Delilah, had been in that scam anthology alongside the Girl last year, and Cleo remembered having been a part of something very similar some forty-seven winters ago.

God, how the time had passed her by….

Cleo had no children of her own, but her numerous siblings provided her with enough nieces and nephews for all of those lonely days. The love of her life had killed himself at nineteen and she hadn’t had a lasting relationship since. She didn’t see the point—she had never been entirely sociable. So instead of the adoring and childless wife, she was the rich aunt, the one who brought the best Christmas presents and could always be counted on in a time of need. She liked the persona slightly, but it paled in comparison with her oldest dreams.

Her plans had seemed so simple then: Go to community college, write, transfer to a university, write, go to graduate school, write, get a temporary position at the local library….She felt her heart palpitate. She took a deep breath.

Likely, the Girl’s plans were very similar. Cleo had come to this conclusion during their few conversations. She always tried to sound hopeful, to boost the Girl’s self esteem, but the creeping feeling that she was just egging her teenaged self on always eventually began to devastate her. Sometimes, as the girl smiled and held her unfinished novel, in its crumbling green notebook, to her chest, pouring over her various ideas and why they were going to change the world, Cleo had the almost irrepressible urge to stand and yell:

“It’s all lies, can’t you see? You are not going to change the world! The odds are against you. You’ll write in your room and you’ll push the world away and you’ll live on a hopeless dream for decades as you get fatter and fatter and settle permanently into your temporary life, and you’ll have kids you don’t want or miss out on kids you do want! You’ll watch your friends live their lives, the casual observer, as if one day you’ll wake up and become the world’s next Steven King, but it will never happen! What will happen is that you’ll wake up one day and realize that life has passed you by. When we’re young, we all dream of greatness, but its those who aren’t willing to let the dream die before it’s too late who end up being nothing in the end. For you, it isn’t too late! Wake the hell up!”

Her heart rate had risen at the mere thought of it. She took a few more slow breaths to sooth the tired muscle, and stood to make her way toward the door.

Although Cleo still wrote from time to time, her style had become choppy, her plotlines simple. Her mind was finally leaving her, her body was failing, and her tattered green notebook had crumbled a long time ago.

When we’re young, she thought, we all dream of greatness…

The Librarian turned out the lights and exited through the back door.