The Library

There is more than salt and sand in the sea. More than any mortal man dares to imagine. An entire vast world of blue and green filled with creatures from heavenly dreams and horrific nightmares. There are coral mountain ranges that surround cavernous valleys, forests of seaweed and kelp atop beds of shell and sand, populated by those that are both frightful and kind. 

It is not a place for man to linger. 

Yet linger Mr. Robertson did.

Mr. Robertson had always had a fondness for the ocean. The glittering aquamarine waters, the crystalline diamond beaches, the scorching golden sun – that was where his wife preferred to stay. On the beach, with an ice cold beverage in hand, a hat on her head, and her nose in a book. 

But, Mr. Robertson’s affections drew him deeper. From the shores to the boats to the reefs till he was several leagues below, skirting the forbidden sands in divers’ attire. He waved at dolphins, smiled at eels, and nodded at every single fish that crossed his path. A yearning for gills and flippers had never struck a humanoid being so intensely as it struck Mr. Robertson at every waking hour of every single day. 

The ocean consumed his every thought. Silent was what he was to those who knew him, for it was silence that he chose to spare them from the never-ending geyser of watery facts that he could never stem. His thirst for the ocean bled into all else that he consumed. Movies, books, courses – if it had naught to do with the sea then it had naught to do with him. He’d filled more than one room in his house with oceanic paraphernalia. But, even surrounded thus, the pictures, books, and perfumes were poor replacements for the real thing.

It was on one of his treasured deep sea diving excursions that Mr. Robertson made the discovery that drove him from the ocean for good.

He’d been treading sand in a new area. A spot decorated in coral the color of the sun when it rises or sets. Purples and pinks, and oranges and red, all encased, encircled and embraced by the ever-changing blues and greens of the translucent water. He’d just finished bidding ‘good day’ to a moray eel when a perfectly Mr. Robertson sized hole in the fantastical formations winked at him in invitation. As a man enchanted he swam for the opening like one being called home. Not a whit of fear fluttered in his heart until the entrance changed from welcoming to entrapping. 

A current he was powerless to fight against, swirled around him and pulled him from the light blue waters into the yawning, and now frightening, blackness. For a moment he was sure that he must drown, that there was no other ending for him other than this – a watery death for the water obsessed. Though a part of him thought it poetic, the rest of him screamed that he wanted to live. 

He wanted light, he wanted land, he wanted air, he wanted life!

And then – he was out. 

His head broke the surface of the water and he ripped the scuba gear from his face with a ferociousness he hadn’t known he’d possessed. Lungful after gulping lungful he breathed. The lower half of his body was still in the water and suddenly he hated it. Floundering about like an impatient cat receiving their first bath he swam for the shore. Hands slapped slippery rock as Mr. Robertson dragged himself from the now accursed sea. 

Flopping onto his back he shuttered his eyes and breathed. 

And breathed.

And breathed…

And…

Opening his eyes again came to the conclusion that he must be dreaming. For all around him, amongst the shimmering stalagmites and stalactites were shelves upon shelves of books. Big books, small books, hardbacks, paperbacks, leather-bound, paper-page filled books…

The stranded diver shot to his feet and spun on the spot. He half expected the space to morph around him, as it so often did in a dream, to turn into a more believable place. But it did not. It remained what it was. A natural cave – under the sea – filled to the brim with books. Books, and rocks, and – lights. Yellow and white orbs that hung suspended here and there, illuminating a shelf in that corner, a table in that one, a plush armchair in another… 

Mr. Robertson punched himself in the head.

It hurt. 

That didn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t dreaming. Some people felt pain in their dreams. Sure, Mr. Robertson never had, but that didn’t mean that he never could. He could be dreaming…or…

“Lacey,” his wife’s name slipped involuntarily from his lips as he stepped away from the pool of black liquid and into the mysterious underwater library. The air was thick and humid – but definitely oxygenated. The rocks were sharp and solid. The books were soft, dry, and – real. Upon the spines a sharp and thin script denoted their titles. Mr. Robertson slipped one off the shelf and flipped through it. The pages were bone dry and covered in – some kind of language. 

“Excuse me?”

Mr. Robertson yelped in what can only be referred to as the voice of a little girl – the kind that would wear a frilly little dress and have their hair up in pigtails. The book he’d been perusing clattered to the floor with an abominable crunch. And now it was the turn for the owner of the ‘excuse me’ voice to yelp in dismay. Blinking the shock away Mr. Robertson looked on in horror as a figure in a maroon cloak rescued the fallen tome from its pitiful position. 

“Be careful, will you,” the figure carried on in perfect posh English, brushing sand from the crumpled pages as they straightened. “This is my only copy.”

The figure looked to be man, humanoid at the very least, with pale pinkish skin, teeth slightly to sharp and too long to make one comfortable, and eyes disproportionately small. A reading lamp, presumably attached to a harness on his back, extended over his shoulder and shone a perfect little circle of blue-ish light onto the now slightly mangled book. He sighed heavily.

“I-I’m sorry,” Mr. Robertson stuttered. “Only, you startled me, you see.”

“Apologies, I’m sure. But,” the man shot him a sideways glare, “you are in trespassing in my library.”

“Your library?”

“Yes. Do you see anyone else?”

“Well, no. I’m just surprised is all. That is to say, that I’m surprised that there is a library here. Not that that I’m surprised that it’s your library. It makes sense. After all, as you’ve said, you’re here, so…”

The man in the maroon cloak raised a miniscule eyebrow on his squashed forehead until Mr. Robertson stopped talking. Then, after a polite albeit uncomfortable passage of silence, it was his turn to speak.

“How ever did you come by here? You haven’t told anyone about this place, have you?”

“What? No,” Mr. Robertson shook his head in earnest, “no, no I haven’t told anyone about this place. I just – well, you see it was the current, really. I was out amongst the corral, and the current pulled me in. I really had no intention of coming here at all, I can assure you. Not that it’s not a nice place, to be sure, it is v -.”

“Yes, well,” the man with the long and pointy teeth cut him off, “so long as no one else knows, I suppose there’s no harm done.”

“Quite right,” Mr. Robertson mumbled, “quite right.” 

Now it was at this time that Mr. Robertson, who was desperately missing his wife, his home, and his good old dry earth, started to feel a smidge of panic. He was dearly hoping to get out of this so-called library as soon as possible. But, it would be a lie to say that he felt confident that this new strange ‘man’ would show him the exit easily and without any strings attached. Especially considering his ‘no harm done’ remark. It was just when Mr. Robertson was about to breach the subject of asking for the way out when the stranger spoke first.

“Have you ever read this book?”

“Um,” Mr. Robertson fidgeted in his rubber suit, “no, I can’t say that I have.”

“Then, I don’t suppose you’ve read the sequel?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Damn!” the man swore in a very normal earthly manner, “I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of the thing. It’s rarer than a black pearl in May as they say.”

“Too right you are,” Mr. Robertson agreed, although he’d never heard that expression before in his life. 

“At this point, I’d really just like to know how the story ends.”

“I can understand you there.”

“Yes, well,” the man grinned at him in a friendly way. “Good day to you.” And with that he turned away, head in the book, and moved off towards the darker areas of the library. 

Mr. Robertson spluttered on the spot, too flabbergasted by the whole encounter to think straight. But, only for a moment.

“Wait!” he cried, having quickly collected himself. He ran after the man. Hand outstretched inches from the maroon shoulder, the head turned back to him and this time Mr. Robertson was too frightened to make even the smallest sound. Skin slimy and see-through, teeth sharper and longer than they’d been in the light, the man’s face had turned into one that Mr. Robertson had only seen before in science books. 

“Yes?”

“I-ah-auh-I was w-ondering if, if you could – um, sh-show me the, the way out of here?”

“Ah yes,” comprehension dawned in his milky eyes, “You’ll want the land exit, I’m assuming, yes?”

“Yes, please.”

“Right then, just head down that way bearing right the whole time till you reach a fork, then go left. You should reach the surface in about,” he glanced down at Mr. Robertson’s legs, “in about an hours’ time, I should think.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Robertson nodded, “thank you very much Mister - ?”

“Angler, Mister Angler. And you are?”

“Robertson.”

“Good day to you, Mister Robertson. I trust we won’t meet again, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good,” he held his very human looking gloved hand out for a handshake. Mr. Robertson took it and was not surprised to feel nothing in the glove. Mr. Angler’s reading light bobbed in the air between them. 

When Mr. Robertson reached dry land, beheld at the sky, breathed the free air, and hugged his wife he knew then that the nightmare had been real. He threw away his scuba gear, sold his boat, and locked all of his oceanic belongings, along with every memory of all things under the sea, away into a single room. As the years passed he became known as the talkative old man with a disdain for the sea. And whenever one of his grandkids asked why there was a locked room in his house and what lay within in it, the only answer they would receive was ‘that’s the library’.

THE END.