The Timeless Library

1. The Timeless Library

In a timeless place, hidden somewhere in the far reaches of the human collective, there exists a Library.

Adrift in the space between dreams and reality it floats, soaring through a sea of thoughts and emotions old and new.

Worn down brick fuses with hardened metal on its walls; Roman pillars hold up a facade adorned with Gothic windows, an Art Deco roof, and heavy oaken double doors. Though a veritable cacophony of styles, all is where it should be, and it all somehow fits together in a collage of architectural marvel from the ages.

Inside, silence reigns. Timeless pages sit on every wall, carefully bound in myriad materials: leather, aluminum, wood, plastic, stone, glass... Some volumes glow a faint blue hue, their digital words shifting and scrolling within. Others, old and weary, simply rest, unmoving.
The Library does not smell of paper, nor leather, nor ink. It smells of coffee.

The sound of a machine pressing hot water through coffee grounds echoes down the hallway, breaking the silence. In the furthermost room—at the source of the sound—deft hands with polished nails pour half a jar of milk into a steaming cup. Not one, but two perfectly shaped sugar cubes are dropped inside, then swirled with a dainty silver spoon. One, two, three stirs, then the spoon is removed and placed back on the saucer.

This is how the Librarian makes her coffee. Every day, without fail, since the dawn of time and until it ceases to be, she starts off her morning with this elegant, methodical routine.

Her movements are as impeccable as her manners. Clad in a medieval bliaut, her deep blue skirts glide along the polished marble floors, accentuated by the solid click of her pristine white heels. Gracefully she moves to her desk and drops into her chair, the coffee in her hands undisturbed by the motion. At last, she closes her eyes and takes a sip.

Silence reigns again in the Library for this timeless moment. As if waiting with bated breath, the very air in the room seems to come to a still while the Librarian savors the complex yet familiar flavors of her beverage. Caramel and hazelnut with a hint of orange linger on her lips, just as they always do. It warms her from within.

Only when the final drop has been drained does time start again. The Librarian sets down her cup with a soft clink and picks her hair up into a bun, ensuring not a single golden lock is out of place; then, finally, she is ready to begin.

First, she needs her writing utensils. From the drawer to her right she brings out her quill and ink and sets both on the table, just within reach. She stands, moves to the cabinet on her left, and opens it to find—

—nothing. She has run out of parchment.

The Librarian is as still as the Library for a heartbeat. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again.

A hitch in the routine. No matter.

There is always more parchment to be found in the storeroom, she recalls. It is not her favorite place, vast and ever-expanding as it is. The hallways seem to go on forever, and so do the shelves that line the walls, as if a bizarre Escher illusion brought to life. One could live in that room alone for all of eternity, walk for decades on end, and never see where it finishes, or arguably begins. Without a doubt, it makes the perfect place to keep enough parchment, coffee, ink, and general sustenance to last several lifetimes.

Uncanny as the surreal storeroom feels, visiting it to stock up on material is nevertheless an occasional necessity. And so, deciding not to waste a moment longer pondering it, the Librarian briskly makes her way over. Upon opening the door and peeking inside, she finds what she needs right where it should be; this elicits a sigh of relief. She is back on schedule.

Even loaded up with an armful of parchment covering her entire torso, the Librarian struts down the hallways with grace and finesse. She keeps the balance with ease, shifting her weight and compensating while she walks. She even manages to free one of her hands long enough to reach for the doorknob and swing open the door to her office.

What awaits her there, however, puts her entire balancing act to waste.

Dozens of scrolls unceremoniously fall to the ground as the Librarian stares, dumbfounded, at the package on her desk that was not there before she left. In truth, cardboard boxes materializing out of thin air come as no surprise to her: it is part of her routine to unpack and process these deliveries. The glaring issue here is not the package, but its location.

The boxes always contain items of a single genre, and so they always appear inside their corresponding room, next to their corresponding shelf. Fantasy deliveries spawn next to the Fantasy shelf, and Romance deliveries spawn next to the Romance shelf. Science Fiction next to Science Fiction, Paranormal next to Paranormal... In all of her days in the Library, the Librarian has never witnessed a box appear inside her own office, where no story belongs.

It is, no doubt, another hitch in the routine. And that is slightly concerning.

After many centuries on the job, the Librarian had noticed a pattern. When everything is the same—always predictable, never changing for eternities on end—the differences, however subtle, stand out like a smear of ink on pristine paper. Too many differences stacked up, and the day is no longer a normal day, one of the myriad uncountable ones. It instead becomes a strange day: a memorable day. For better or (more often) for worse.

Three hitches, the Librarian had calculated, is what it takes for a normal day to become a strange day. One hitch is rather common. Two is cause for worry. And three...

She shakes her head. Ruminating over the endless possibilities is useless. She will cross that bridge if and when—

—BOOM!
The cardboard box explodes.

It is indeed about to be one of her strange days, she realizes.