Burn

A Story by ZackOfBridge

An author wants to know the status of his book after a book burning.

“I would like to check the status of a book.” I said and set my coffee on the counter. The woman on the opposite side, the librarian, was sobbing into ash-dusted hands. The hair around her face and set upon her head resembled the nest of a blind and decoratively deficient bird. At the look of me she ran her charcoaled hands through her hair and wiped the tears from her cheek, a streak of ash covered the flushed red of her skin. On the wall above her head, a poster warned me ‘Shhh this is a library’ I place my hands on the counter and leaned into a whisper, “Pardon me, can you check the status of a book, a novel?”

She looked at the shelves of the library, but snapped back to me and winced her eyes shut, shaking her head. Another tear ran down her cheekbone and dripped onto the counter, “They burned. The books were burned.”

“Yes ma’m, I saw the fire from my window,” I said. I had seen the embers floating in the night like restless red stars. I had been trying to get some writing in before I went to sleep, but the burners were proud and kept shouting for more books. The fire crackled louder as it was fed, the flames were becoming well read. The smell of ashy cinder hung like a specter in my apartment,“It must have been quite the burn.”

Her open jaw began to tremble. She was going to cry again. I could see the bulbs welling in the corners of her eyes. The librarian, she was disturbingly young and she was going to cry. She had no intention of breaking her gaze from mine. Behind her wet eyes and in the theatre of her mind where she had once configured the images from her favorite books, the memory of the last night's fire blackened and eradicated the dove white pages of those books. “Yes, quite the burn.”

“Well that means less sorting for you I suppose,” I said. I swiveled my attention to the desolate library and its narrow aisles. The shelves resembled unkempt teeth. Gaps, voids were left where books had been thrown into a sack and hauled to the awaiting flames. Some books had been tossed onto the ground, their spines to the ceiling and their pages, sprawled and crumpled against the floor. The books did not look as though they had given a struggle, but there was devastation and massacre all about the carpet. The librarian had not even begun to sort through the disorder; surely today’s youth have lost the work ethic that was once the staple of our great nation. No one wants to enter the public library and see that it is in dissolution. “Could you please help me check the status of a book?”

“Which?”

“My own.” I said. The librarian’s eyebrows curled and hugged each other close in her confusion. I lifted the steaming coffee from the counter and sipped at it, the bitter heat absorbed my tongue. She only sat there; today’s youth don’t know how to treat a customer. A customer does not want to enter the public library to be confronted with the fluctuating emotions of a teen-age girl. “I would like to know if it was burned.”

I told her the title of my novel and my pen name. Her shaking hand pointed to where my book would be. “Thanks,” I said and started my way to the aisle. I was following a trail of beaten books on the floor. I kicked a couple out of my way, they were already destroyed and kicking them wasn’t going to change that. There was a knocking on the inside of my chest as I approached the shelf. I began to finger out each book that was not my own, swiping my finger through the survivors, skipping large gaps of empty space where a clutch of books had been taken and burned to ash. I wasn’t seeing my novel. A smile was rising on my face; I couldn’t find my novel, it must have been burned.

And then with another swipe of my finger, I was covering the first letter of my name. The book, my book was standing amongst the unburned. My book had survived the burning, and it hadn’t even been considered. I tilted the book from its crevice in between the two books placed around it. I fluttered the pages, none of them had been ripped out, nothing and nobody had harmed my book.

I started back to the librarian; she was pushing her face into her hands. She swayed her head. I dropped the book onto the counter in front of her. The young girl flinched in her seat; dust particles leaped into the air and were intersected by a beam of sunlight. She looked from the book to my face in a rising vertical sweep. “Your book, it wasn’t burned.”

“Why the Hell wasn’t it?” I said, and I was disobeying the poster above her head.

“Wha-what?” Her voice was the squeak of a mouse.

“My book, my Goddamn masterpiece, it wasn’t burned,” I started, flecks of saliva sputtering from my mouth. “In this book I challenged God, I stomped on the political game, and I entangled it in sexual temptation. This is a book for burning.”

“They must not have seen it as a threat.” She said, her head cast down to me, my anger had gone over her head. She flipped through the pages of my failure.

“They burn the greats.” I said. My dusted hands rose to cover my face. Silently I wept for myself. No one would ever burn me.

The librarian was fiddling in her desk, I could hear her pushing aside paper clips and pens. My hands parted like fleshy curtains.

On the counter, the young librarian placed a lighter on the title of my novel.

© 2013 ZackOfBridge

Author's Note

I would like to know if this was any good

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Featured Review

Avery

I really liked it! I could imagine the librarian with ash on her hands from sifting through rubble trying to salvage anything left. And the spit spewing as he spurted about his book. Just a tip, maybe express the character's fury and grief a bit more, like describing his hands waving in the air frantically as he explained what his book was about or stepping very close to the librarian and looking in her face, talking right at her with his face twisted in disbelief. Very original, great job :)