The Library of Life

This is not what I expected at all. I had expected it to be special, sure. A full moon setting at the exact time of the summer solstice was one of those things that only happens once in a thousand years. And it was even more exceptional that no one grasped how special it was: I’d had Carrowkeel to myself this night. I felt extraordinarily lucky.

I’d prepared for the trip for months. Bought all the right clothing, sturdy shoes, camping gear and so on. I was as prepared as I could be, or so I thought. The only thing I couldn’t control was the weather, but I had been lucky there: the night had started cloudy, but around 2 am all the clouds had disappeared and the skies were clear. The moon was so bright that I almost had to shield my eyes looking at it. When I made my plans, I had figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and hike up the hill in the dark, so I’d made the walk the evening before and made my camp inside the chamber of Cairn G – the one I had been drawn to since I first saw it as a child. It was quite cosy, really.

But nothing could have prepared me for the actual moonset I’d come to witness. As the dawn was starting to break, the light of the full moon seemed brighter than ever, creeping over the floor of the cairn. When it hit the back wall, I gasped. Silver decorations, previously invisible, started glowing: swirls, spirals, zigzags and feathers came into view, all centred around a large circle in the middle of the stone. I glanced through the doorway at the moon. It was sinking quickly. The last ray hit the circle just as the last ray of light shone over the horizon. At that precise moment the ground trembled. The stone at the back of the cairn began to shake, more and more violently. I tried and failed to keep by balance. As I hit the wall, it gave way, swinging to the side as if it was a door opening, revealing a corridor that I had never imagined existed. I tumbled down the slope uncontrollably, coming to a stop when the ground levelled out some twenty yards below. The stone swung back into place, leaving me in darkness.

Dazed, I crawled back to the entrance, but I couldn’t see or feel any way of getting out again. The closing stone was massive: it must have weighed a few tons, at least. As I sat down, leaning my back against it, I realized my eyes were adjusting to the darkness; I could see a faint flickering glow coming from further down the tunnel. I got up and slowly made my way, trailing my hand along the rough walls as I went.

The first thing I noticed was the structure of the stone beneath my fingers. It became smoother and smoother, until it felt like polished marble against my skin. The floor changed as well, from rough rock to smooth paving stones. And the light became increasingly bright. Finally, the space opened out into a large space that resembled an entrance hall. The air here was dusty and dry. There appeared to be several corridors leading to the left and right.

                 ‘Hello?’ I called out, ‘is there anyone there?’ There was no sign of life. I gingerly made my way to the first corridor on the right. To my surprise, I found myself in a huge library, with multiple tiers of bookshelves and stacks that rose to a distant ceiling above my head. There were stairs dotted throughout the space: some movable to reach higher shelves, some fixed, where higher tiers could be reached. I noticed that the books all had the same appearance: they were uniform in height and they were all bound in red leather with gold decoration, but the thickness varied. Some seemed to be a few pages, while others must have run in the thousands. I picked up a medium sized one but found I couldn’t read it. It had been written in a script I didn’t know. Thai, maybe? Another turned out to have been written in Cyrillic, and a third in roman alphabet, but in a language I couldn’t decipher.

I went back to the hall and tried another corridor. This one was a downward ramp, which ended in another huge library. Whichever corridor I tried, they all seemed to lead to a library, but despite the incredible number of books, there seemed to be no people anywhere, nor any other sign of life.

Finally, I found the smallest of the library rooms, through a wooden door that I’d located at the back of the hall. This one was only about the size of my bedroom at home. The stacks were not very high, and there was a leather reading chair in one corner. I sat down in it, not knowing what to do now. I felt as if I was dreaming, as if I was Alice and I’d just tumbled down the rabbit hole into wonderland. I looked at the books on the shelves. Unlike those in the other rooms, the ones in this room appeared to all be the same size. One in particular drew my attention, but until I picked it up I couldn’t have told you why. There was nothing on the cover that was any different from any other book in the library, and yet this one seemed to pulse in my hands. I opened it on a random page. It was in English, and here’s what it read:

                 Finally, sitting there in the keeper’s room, he found the book on his own life and began to read. That’s when he found out the meaning of this library: to keep the stories of all the humans on earth, from their births until their deaths. That’s when he found out that he was destined to be the newest keeper, and that he would never leave the library again. That’s when the previous keeper found him to explain his duties.

                 ‘Ah, you’re here, finally,’ I heard an ancient voice say behind me.