An Open Book

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"Oh my goodness! Sir?...Is this your very first library card?!" The dainty librarian behind the desk, wearing a sky-blue dress with lacy straps and unfurled daffodils, raised up in her seat. The creeping vines winding along the keyboard turned, as though to gaze at him.

Miles took a deep breath and leaned back. "That's...correct." He glanced around, not with nervousness but an abrasive irritation. "My...granddaughter has been badgering me for a while."

Launching up from her chair, the librarian set a hand to the space below her throat. "She is doing a fine duty then. I've never even heard of someone without a library card. I assume you likely had a library ticket, back when those were the thing."

Clearing his throat, Miles scratched his chin and muttered, "Never got around to it in that century."

Her eyes widening greatly, the librarian scolded him, "Sir, you mean to tell me you have never, in all your centuries on this Earth, partaken in the services of any library organization?"

Miles hid his head and sighed. This was why he didn't want to come in. It was bad enough getting called out for how behind the times he was with other things. One century, it's motor cars. Another, farming. He was there at the beginning, when the first human left the quiet serenity of the African savannah. The first who knew we were unlike other animals, even though they were fewer than 20,000 in that original gene pool.

After a long pause, he answered, "That is correct. I never got around to it."

Hurrying behind her desk, the librarian waved the plants aside and dug up an old cart printer under a mountain of books and set it in front of Miles. Quietly, he muttered, "Perhaps this is a mistake..."

She flashed a long-nailed finger and shook her head. "I won't have any of that. You, dear sir, have deprived yourself of the richness of human experience for too long and it's about time we remedy that."

First, she invited him around the counter for chamomile tea she'd grown in the back. Blowing roughly on the steam, Miles sighed and eyed the printer. The librarian raised her eyes and inquired, "Someplace to be?"

Miles dipped his head. "No. Just not used to all this fuss."

The librarian snickered. "Humor me a bit. I haven't had a newbie in quite some time. A few lapsed library-goers in the 19th century but it was the Library of Alexandria when we had the big numbers."

Easing back in the chair, Miles sighed as he noted, "I saw it a few times. Always tempted but never went in. Been a librarian your whole life?"

The dainty woman clutched her cup and wiggled her head. "As far back as I can remember. The 4th century is a bit fuzzy. The royal libraries were always my favorites, aside from the kings. I know where a few of the Assyrian ones are still interred."

Sipping gently, Miles mused, "You suppose things would be different if humans could end, like other beings?"

She drained her cup and chuckled in answer, "That's not for me to know. I've come to terms with it after a long, existential crisis where I tried to find ways to die, for the fun of it. What I can't imagine is you've been around this long and not embraced reading, for a bit of variety."

He narrowed his eyes wistfully. "There're enough things to remember out there in the world. Sometimes, the mind feels full and you forget the little things which used to be important. I hate that. I refuse to indulge in forgetting."

She fanned a hand. "Forgetting? Is that what you think reading is about? Pish posh. Come along. You have much to learn."

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He barely had time to finish his tea before she was pressing a newly-minted library card into his hands. The vines arched up and away from the card printer before curling up like a lazy cat at the edge of the counter.

In another age, he would've considered the library neglected for all the trees and vines sprouting out walls and shelves. But he'd been told, mostly by his granddaughter, it was the new way they took care of circulation. New books formed out of the larger branches. Bio-luminescence lit the room and the air maintained a freshness despite the clear age of certain books.

Folding his arms, Miles stared at the canopy and sighed. The librarian gestured and explained, "Every book ever written is the legacy of humanity to share. Even though some authors have destroyed their own work or lost it. But, as best as we can manage, every book is now yours to read. We only ask that you return them eventually. You're welcome to stay as long as you wish. The custodial trees can provide you with a place to sleep when you tire."

Tightening his face, Miles reiterated, "I don't want to forget."

She shook her head. "It's just reading. Letting yourself be immersed in dreams, words, and ideas. Imagination is the most powerful gift humanity has, bigger than innate immortality. It's looking through yourself and seeing more, new aspects, not losing the old."

After a while, she left him to the books. He wanted to just sneak out, go on a walk for a decade or two. He picked up a random, red book on the edge of a shelf. The history of ballet. A soft melody, a piano he used to play, drifted through his thoughts.

One book flowed into another. He skimmed a few but never really dug into and excavated what they said to him. It was at the tenth book he found a young lady who reminded him of his second daughter. Rough shirts, wrinkled jeans, hair like her mother. She played the piano with him. He lingered with that book till he could feel those same clothes on him and the smell of that hair lingered.

Only when he found a mirror did he scoff that he'd let his imagination get away from him. He was like her. No more wrinkles and fuzzy hair like the tatters of stuffing from an old teddy bear. His eyes had stayed silvery, though worn to a polished sheen. He traced the contours of his new mouth and flicked back a lock of dark-brown hair.

He'd never been particularly tall, so having a woman's height didn't perturb him. A woman's hips and behind? Well, he probably had as much to say about that as the shelves around him. Even when words on a page were the fuel of boundless human imagination, so much was still left to be said. And his daughters would have plenty to say about the state their dad had imagined himself in. Herself.

She hadn't thought of herself with an eye-catching appearance. The words on the page had been vague enough to let her decide.

Folding her arms, she didn't feel all that different. Sure, she had a deep wiggle that would change if she stayed years enough to ovulate. The rest was a friendly tickle, like a discovery of something long-forgotten. With relief, she admitted that everything of herself was still there. Every child's smile at a world they were seeing for the first time, before the world grew so small that it felt it had shown all there was to offer.

As she stood there, new eyes gleaned from a few scraps of writing and every happy feeling of her daughters, she could imagine it all in ways that not even her lifetime could touch.

And she still had much more to read.