Mr. Linden's Library

James Brush

Advanced Writing Lab 12

Mr. Dumaine

January 30, 2006

(Revision Completed: February 26th, 2007)

Mr. Linden’s Library

When Carla had first stepped into Mr. Linden’s massive library, she was overwhelmed. Oceans of hard-cover tomes were stacked on top of each other, musty tsunamis that loomed almost as high as the ceiling. There was only one source of light in the room, an elegant antique lamp resting in the very center of the library on an oak table-top. Carla marveled at the lamp’s majestic purple body while rays the color of wheat emanated infinitely from the ancient artifact. The rays cast a multiplicity of obscure shadows into many peculiar angles of the room, which in turn manifested themselves into the cragged silhouettes of various monsters and beasts. Carla’s gaze drifted. The gold gilded pages of the books seemed to absorb the pitch black, somehow reminding her of the tower of Babel, and she immediately wondered whether the books would touch the stars, had the ceiling not been there.

Carla’s attention drifted back and forth from the books to the lamp, astonished at the gravity she felt towards both. Finally, however, her gaze came to rest on the lamp, its aura seeming to reach out to her, like luminous tendrils, wrapping its light around her and comforting her, a beautiful paradox since it seemed to her that this lamp was the center of the universe. After a few tranquil moments passed, Carla tore her hypnotized eyes away, knowing that Mr. Linden would be in to greet her at any second, now.

Suddenly, the sturdy door behind her creaked open, and in hobbled Mr. Linden, relying heavily on his curled blackwood cane to walk. The cane was narrow at the bottom and had a thick, gnarled resting stump for Mr. Linden’s hand. From under his wrinkled flesh protruded two other hard stumps, like puffy knots in the cane’s wood, although they appeared much harder than the rest of the stump. To Carla, the appearance of the cane was nearly identical to that of a cobra’s.

Mr. Linden himself said nothing, didn’t even look at her, just pushed past a small stack of books rising up from the floor, keeping his transparent gaze fixated and unmoving on the carpet as he walked. It was evident to Carla that Mr. Linden was blind.

“Mr. Linden?” Carla said as a strange, unnamed feeling came over her. Mr. Linden stopped walking, but still said nothing. The only noise filling the room now was Mr. Linden’s raspy wheeze. Carla began to grow worried, not knowing if he had heard her.

“Mr. Linden? . . . Sir?” she said, meekly. She had heard all of orphans’ cliched stories and as much as she tried to push them into the back of her mind, they resurfaced like dead fish, haunting her. No, she had told herself. None of those horrid stories are true. They can’t be. Staring at Linden’s Frankenstein-like figure before her, however, certainly made her doubt her previous convictions. Her mind was wandering darting from the awe of the room orphans’ stories, to trying to figure out what lay behind the old man’s steady, immobile stare.

Then, from the corners of his cornflower blue eyes, a wet film flooded in, filling his eyes with vigor, bringing him back from the land of the dead and breathing life throughout his entire being, although he remained motionless. Then, to her surprise, he spoke.

His voice was gentle and cautious and he did not stay long to talk. After he had given a few simple instructions, he shuffled back through the door from which he had come. But Carla did not seem to hear Mr. Linden. She only stood still for a couple of minutes, as stiff as a desert cactus, her arms staying fixed in the same crossed position that she’d formed upon entering. A leather purse the color of volcanic ash hung from her elbow. It was the only possession of her parents’ that she had been able to keep. The purse seemed to juxtapose her white tank top and khaki skirt with a hint of melancholy, reflective of Carla’s mood. She would have to get used to this place.

Now Carla’s mind was a rat in a sewer, trying to scurry its way to some sort of security. Not only did she have to siphon through the old, tiresome, shit that had been rotting away in her mind for what seemed to be years, but now she had piles of fresh, unprocessed shit to deal with, too. She had turned another corner in her life, and now the sewer system itself was foreign to her. Yes, she thought to herself once more, I will have to get used to this place.

* * *

Carla’s parents had been mugged and killed when she was three, and for the past eleven years she had been living in an orphanage on the other side of town. The orphanage was where she’d heard the stories of Old Mr. Linden, the creep, the pedophile, the man who never left his house, whom no one ever saw. At least those who did see Mr. Linden never lived to tell about it. That’s why Carla had been so scared when she heard that Mr. Linden had arranged for her to come live with him. She had never met the octogenarian, didn’t know anything about him, except that he wanted a child’s company.

Now a wave of logic rushed over her. She wondered how anyone could say that every kid unlucky enough to see his face never lived to tell about. Obviously, if those tales where true, then there would be no one to spread such rumors. Carla smirked to herself, thinking about why she had agreed to come here in the first place.

One reason, she thought, was my need to prove to the other orphans that I was brave enough. For another. . . Well . . . for another, I guess I was afraid that I’d live in that horrible orphanage all my life. Her zoned-out gaze again snapped back to reality, again back to Mr. Linden’s words.

He had welcomed her, warmly, gently, and Carla felt at ease. No, it was more than that. It was the opposite of fear. That feeling, combined with Mr. Linden’s voice, was so soothing that she had drifted out of her already sluggish state of mind, and into a world of memories. Mr. Linden was so. . . nice. . . the antethesis of what she had expected. . . The moment those thoughts flooded her was the moment she started to think about her parents.

That was a minute ago. Now, however, Mr. Linden’s words were finally ricocheting off her brain, and she knew that she better catch the remnants of his instructions before the echoes faded from her memory entirely. After his endearing welcome, he chuckled to himself jovially, stating that he wasn’t very good at giving instructions since he had a tendency to scare people.

“You don’t seem frightening in the least!” Carla said, feeling the need to object.

Mr. Linden replied that although this may be the case to her, he had the feeling that certain crowds would feel differently. Then he amazed Carla by introducing her properly to his massive collection of books. She was not amazed because his collection was so large, she’d already had time to gape in awe at its size, but because he was able to point to every stack, every pile and tell her the author’s name and whether or not he thought their writing styles would appeal to a young girl such as herself or not. Carla now noted that Mr. Linden had recommended specifically the works of Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, John Bunyan and James M. Barrie. I’ll have to read those sometime, she thought to herself.

Mr. Linden reminded her that he would keep his introduction short, very short, and then leave her to do as she wished. After he was finished telling her about his books he looked her straight in the eyes. Somehow his milky pupils knew exactly where to scan, and this was perhaps the only time that Carla felt anything even remotely close to fear in his presence. He told her that she could read any book in his library, any book at all, just so long as it wasn’t the book that lay next to the majestic purple lamp. Also, he added, did she understand what he was asking her?

Carla felt intimidation creeping up on her the way chilled, frothing waves seep in around bare toes. Trying to overcome this feeling, she almost immediately replied: “Of course.” Mr. Linden simply replied “Good,” then slowly turned on his leathery old heel and doddered away.

What an adorable old man, Carla thought in retrospect, despite that uncomfortable moment. But he is a mysterious old man. . . That was a very strange greeting he gave me. I wonder why he didn’t want me to read that book? Wouldn’t it make more sense of him to remove it from the library if he didn’t want anybody reading it? But then again, she thought, it is his house, and maybe he feels like he shouldn’t have to.

Carla sat down in a chair next to the table-top. She was staring at that book, now, curiosity flooding over her. She attempted to substitute her observations of the book for her curious compulsions. Instead of acting upon her instincts and reading it, she took in every detail about it, not wanting to disobey the sweet old man courteous enough to provide her with a new home. She imagined everything that could be written within its pages, all of the adventures, all the facts, all the monsters, all the secrets. She noted every minuscule detail about it: the yellow pages, the frayed, fir-green cover, hard as the mahogany wood it was resting upon. She was especially curious about the emerald colored leaves protruding from some of the pages, dry as decadent raisins. What could those possibly be for? She stared at the book, hardly looking at anything else for so long that she didn’t notice just how fast time was whizzing by.

In fact, she didn’t move from the edge of the table at all until Mr. Linden returned hours later, to tell her that it was getting to be around the time she go to bed. But Carla was so immersed in the mystery of this book that it took four or five tries before he was able to make a verbal leap over her newly erected walls of concentration, diverting her attention away from that solitary, enigmatic book.

* * *

Off in the distance of Carla’s mind, there was a hummingbird whose beautiful wings were flapping a million miles a second. She supposed this created a gray-green blur, a see-through blur of feathers and stale air, but she couldn’t see the hummingbird, so it didn’t matter. Funny, thought Carla to herself, I don’t remember Mr. Linden owning any pets.

Buzzzzz! There it was again, the hummingbird resuming its flight. Carla felt very sleepy. In fact, she might go to sleep any second now. And why not? She could have anything she wanted here. Why, if I want a pillow, she thought, I can have a pillow. If I want a thousand, then I shall have a thousand. If I want the floor to be covered in pillows, then that’s exactly what will happen! This is my world. I can do what I want. Sleeping isn’t such a bad idea. . .

Buzzzzzzzzzz! The hummingbird was more persistent now.

“Go away!” she shouted, though it seemed to be doing no good. Then, after waiting a few moments for the hummingbird to obey her command, she realized the words hadn’t actually left her mouth. Hmmm. . . Is there someone else is my fantasy-world?

Buzzzzzzzz! Buzzzzzz! The whir of the hummingbird’s wings seemed to be calling her now, almost as if they were forming words. She turned one hundred and eighty degrees around, away from the book resting on its stand, away from the object of her fascination. There, a few feet away from her, hovered the hummingbird. It was much, much larger than she expected, and paler, too. Its wings were blurred, but not gray or green, like she had thought. Instead, they were a light, pasty beige color, obscuring more of the air around them by the minute.

Carla winced, observing that the hummingbird was now nearly personifying itself in human form. Within each second that passed, those opaque, vaguely white wings mutated more and more into the likeness of a hunched old man, and the buzzing noise of the wings became increasingly definitive as humanistic. It’s either that or the sound a grapefruit would make if it could talk, Carla mused, still in her delirious dream state.

Before long, Carla realized that what she had thought, up until this moment, was a hummingbird, was really Mr. Linden, who had been trying to get her attention for some time. It was good that Mr. Linden called her now, snapping her out of her imaginative daydream, because if he hadn’t, she would have inevitably become lost in her make-believe world of dreams. Carla quickly repositioned herself in the chair and answered Mr. Linden as quickly as she could, under the circumstances, soon after giving a heartfelt apology for her lack of awareness.

“I hope you didn’t think that I was ignoring you on purpose Mr. Linden. I would never do that. I guess I just got to daydreaming there for a little while and didn’t quite hear you until just now.” Carla felt especially sorry since Mr. Linden couldn’t see—how could he tell if she was still in the library or if he was calling out in vain?—and she made sure to emphasize her sincerity because of this. Mr. Linden assured her that it was quite alright, however, and held out his hand so that he could guide her to bed.

Carla’s desire to read the book had now reached its climax. In the presence of Mr. Linden once more, in the presence of the man who had instructed her not to read the book, her rebellious vein began boiling with adrenaline.

“Oh, uh. . . one moment, please, Mr. Linden, I’ve taken some items out of my purse, and I need to put them back,” Carla lied nonchalantly. The old-timer’s hand lingered patiently in the air, much in the same way she’d imagined the hummingbird. For a moment, Carla gazed at his hand, her conscience swelling like a blood blister, ready to gush forth at the tiniest pinprick. She knew that she would be disobeying Mr. Linden if she took that book, and smallest ounce of guilt could be the pin that popped her conscience, spilling forth a confession. That is why she had to convince herself that what she was doing was right, or at least that it was not wrong.

Hey, she though to herself, if he didn’t want me reading it, then he shouldn’t have left it in the library to begin with. That was good enough for her. With one leg propping up her volcanic-gray purse, and another fishing around inside to make for a convincing distraction, she slowly, quietly, slid the book off the table and into her purse.

Perfect. I’ll just put it back tomorrow morning after I’m done with it, and he’ll never know. With that, she took Mr. Linden’s hand and was lead silently down a series of seemingly endless corridors, to her new bedroom, where she opened the book and read the most incredible story she would ever read.

* * *

The door to Carla’s bedroom creaked open, mimicking a midnight bullfrog. Mr. Linden couldn’t see it, but he knew this room like the back of his patchy hand. There was a night stand in front of the bed, with a smooth, porcelain lamp resting on top. Judging by the slight alteration in temperature of his forearm, he guessed Carla had forgotten to turn it off before she fell asleep. She was probably imagining other worlds again.

He moved forward, a caterpillar in the night, being careful not to step on any of the twelve cracks in the floor from door to bedside. Every one of those cracks might as well have been the on-switch to a bullhorn. Finally, he felt his leg bump quietly against the wooden frame of the bed. The only noise in the room now was the rustle of Mr. Linden’s satin night-gown as he reached down to tuck Carla in.

His paper-like fingertips brushed against her arm as he groped for the cotton sheets. Then his hands ran across the crisp pages of the very book which he’d strictly commanded she didn’t read. His frail fingers groped for more, wondering if she had been courteous enough to leave his leaves in the book, as markings.

Sure enough, she had kept them intact, and they weren’t crumpled into organic particles, either. After a few seconds passed, his fingers once again felt for the cotton sheets, ignoring Carla’s possession of the book. His long fingers pushed the fabric beneath her hips, beneath her ribs, suctioning to her form so that she would have a more comfortable sleep. His other hand reached up to where he knew her forehead was and removed several strands of her short hair from one eye, the right eye, the one that wasn’t completely engulfed in her pillow. He would leave the book for now, let her think she tricked a blind old fool.

Mr. Linden turned and clicked off the light. Then, smiling to himself again, he took cautious yet frail baby-steps towards the door. Mr. Linden thought of the leaves in the book, and how Carla had keep them safe, even if she had disobeyed his direct order. He was at the door now, but stood as still as a gargoyle, pondering upon these things for a minute or two before he finally creaked the door shut once again. As he walked down the hall to pursue his own slumber, he thought of how nice a girl Carla was. Possibly even the nicest little girl he had ever. Mr. Linden sighed to himself, a heavy sigh wreaking of hopelessness and achievement, all at the same time. He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late.