I have a card to a library that does not exist.
It was given to me by an eagle, an owl, I’ll correct, who had flown far, very far. It was the farthest the owl had flown, she told me.
I took the card from her beak and offered her water. She refused without saying why and left without saying how the card worked. I slept that night not thinking much of it, but when the next day came and the card was still there, I questioned my own sanity and thought much of it.
An owl talked to me and it was not a dream. How could an owl talk and it not be a dream? If it were a dream, it would have been fine. The crazier the dreams, the better they were, most of the time.
After I’d boiled my water and made my tea, I slumped on my desk with the card in front of me. It bore my name, a unique number that ended in 2059. It had my address, in its full, but it had no expiry date, no expiry time. The card was old and rugged, crisply bent on the edges. Scars scratched at the card’s surface like the face of a mountain after decades of dry erosion. The sun had baked it with passion, the earth’s crust itself the oven floor. Through withering winds perhaps, or snow, or hail or mud or water, the card must have traversed.
The library’s name had been lost, but I could make out the last three letters. -zal, it said with speculative hesitation. Yet its address was clear, and that was all I needed to know. Coordinates to somewhere I have never been before.
But it was close enough, and that was all, all I needed to know.
I packed my things and traveled. I took a train and then a bus, and then a jeep, and then another bus. After the fifth stop, I stepped off and rode a tricycle, and we followed the way. The rocks on the path (a path barely tended to or repaired), clashed against the vehicle’s thin wheels and no expense of impact was spared. All the time I held the card. Between my fingers, I clutched it, careful not to break it or fold.
It was night now. The last part of my travel was walking, for there were no more roads left for wheels. What was left was a trail of dirt that led upwards around a mountain. I stepped on a rock with moss and slipped, not once or twice or thrice—to be honest I’ve lost count.
It was when I reached the exact coordinate location that I was able to rest, but even that only for a moment’s respite. What awaited me was nothing, more loose vines and trees. I shivered at the maybe, the maybe that my hike had amounted to nothing. The night brought the cold, and I wished I brought some tea to ease the chill. But I saw a clearing in the vines, and in its axis was a rock, a clean rock, polished, tended to, and with no moss.
Before the rock, a humble bonfire crackled.
On the rock perched an owl, the same owl, I’ll accost. The owl sat there waiting, anticipating, expecting. “I am the guardian of the library.” Her voice hummed like the tune of an ancient bell that lived darkly below the ground.
“This card has my name,” I said inquisitively.
The owl flapped her wings once. “Indeed, it has. Many cards are given; few return to me.”
“Where is it? The library? And do you have some tea?”
The owl twitched her head, as if she was stung by something. A bothersome sting, not a painful one. “You do not see it, of course. You do not know the old way, the old world.”
“So, no tea?” Moss and grass rimmed the soles of my shoes. I did not climb a mountain to answer riddles. I’ve never really been good at that. “You thought of me as old?”
“I think of you as human.” Her voice rang. The owl flew. It hovered there, looking at me, her eyes to mine. “And humans are the worst of the Earth’s kind. The extinguishers of the old world with their new ways.”
“You keep saying that—‘old world’, like it’s something I should know.” A wind passed through me. I shivered. I needed some tea.
“It is.” The owl bounded her wings and soared for a high branch of a worn-down tree. She looked at me there with her condescending eyes. “The old world lives through me and my kind, though we shrivel fewer and fewer as the centuries pass.” She scratched her neck with her feet, her talon. “Do you know what dragons are?”
I nodded. I knew of dragons. I haven’t seen one in real life. I doubt anyone has.
“We were dragons,” the owl said. “Before you humans reshaped the story to those of fantasies and fictions. Before you burned the libraries that told our stories and built libraries that retold yours.” The owl spread her wings, and there, by the flickering of the firelight, her shadow grew, and grew. “History, you called it.” Her voice boomed. “But humans only ever mention their achievements, and only after great curation. The vanity of humankind is sickening.” Her shadow grew more, it spread and dampened and loomed as it beheld the shade of a mighty wyvern.
Is this a trap? I took a step back. The fire quivered, making the owl’s shadow retreat behind her. “But I had nothing to do with that. Listen, I just want to know why my name is here.”
“Do you not want success? Power? Vast offerings of knowledge and truth? Truth of history itself and the formation of your world and mine?” The owl descended, returning to its rock. “The library holds it.”
“No. What would I do with that?”
The owl twitched her head, as if she was stung by something. A curious sting, not a painful one. “You are the 12,059th human I have invited to the library. Many cards, I give; few return to me. None have walked away.”
“And where are they now? The people who came to you?”
“They are still there.”
There, the owl said so casually. Surely, the library was hidden somewhere between the intersection of shadows or among the blankets of moss on the rocks, a trick of the fire. Regardless, it’s too dark to see, and too cold to think clearly.
I turned my back and began the way I came.
The owl hooted, “you are sure of this? The library will be lost to you forever if you walk away.”
I didn’t stop. Reading never was for me. The only thing I ever wanted was tea. And maybe a blanket. I could use a blanket.
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