The Library of Disappearing Things

Boris Bondarenko lived in a multicolored cottage house in a one-road village in the Ukranian countryside and had the remarkable ability to read every known language. Most of the anointed were marked from birth, but Boris went unnoticed by the Library for years. It was strange then, but also appropriate, given his time in the world, that it fell on him to prevent the whole thing from burning to the ground.

As a boy, Boris loved to run through the sunflower fields and chase bees. Boris’s childhood duties included cutting up cucumbers and potatoes and feeding them to the chickens. In those days, he would chase the ducks down by the pond after chores, laughing all the way as they clucked and fussed. His summers were full of pastoral delights, sausage and egg breakfasts, dinners of fresh vegetables—and playing with his dogs in the fields all afternoon. His winters were full of stories read by a hearth fire, huddled up in blankets, with hot cocoa—and sleigh rides in the snow. But Boris would stand in the roadway watching the cars go by, dreaming of traveling to faraway places, and would make up stories about places he’d never seen.

At the age of five, Boris’s parents had brought the family on the Viking Grand European Cruise. It was a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest that crossed the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary. Aboard the boat, the tourists came from dozens of countries.

On the warm summer mornings, the tourists would be out on the deck or by the pool on loungers. They left towels and bags to claim their lounge chairs. They left them out very early in the morning when only the children were out at play.

Always there were books in their bags or lying by ice-filled drinks on the deck by their chairs. Boris would walk along, picking up the books and reading from dozens of different languages. His parents were terrified when they caught him doing this and forbade him from picking up the books.

But when they returned home, after heated debates, between Ivan, his father, and Taya, his mother, it was decided that Boris would attend a boarding school in Kharkiv, far to the East, a metropolitan gem on the Russian border. Though Boris was homesick, he loved Kharkiv. He was finally off seeing the world.

He loved it all. He loved the fairgrounds, the city streets and gardens, Svobódy “freedom” square, the fountains and river walks, Gorky Park with its cable cars and bronze statues, Holy Annunciation Cathedral, the old ballet house, the skating park in the winter village, fresh produce at Barbashovo market, and the great halls and wonders of the E.P. Kushnaryov Library. Most of all, he loved Fall in the city. And at sixteen, Boris was in the library on a cool autumn day reading an ancient Sumerian text when Headmaster Shevchenko sent for him.

Abbot Kashif Kalam wore silk robes, a heavy fur coat, and an ushanka fur cap. His hands were covered in many rings. He wore a short, boxed beard and had wild curls of whites, grays, and browns. The man’s eyes were like a gray winter’s sky. His caramel skin shimmered like an aurora. He seemed at once ancient and childlike.

Without so much as an introduction, Abbot Kalam said, “Good, the boy is here. Here are the transfer papers. This one will be coming with me.”

And that was the day Boris’s life changed forever.

* * *

“Where are we going?” Boris asked.

“Come with me,” Abbot Kalam said, hastening toward the E.P. Kushnaryov Library that Boris had just left.

As they entered, Kalam led them through the stacks of books to an old section under renovation. Kalam spoke as if to himself, “Where is it now? In these archaic buildings, it is usually in an old ceremonial wing… ahh yes, here we are.” It was where the marble floors of the old building, with their cubed decoration, lay below frescoed ceilings. Along its corridor, display cases were spaced out about three feet apart, and an old-fashioned globe was positioned at one far corner. 

When they entered the roped-off ceremonial hall in the old section of the building, Abbot Kalam spun the globe, holding his hands over it as it spun. The spinning picked up speed, to Boris’s great surprise. Little sparks and shocks of lightning erupted from his hands, small particulates forming miniature clouds, a slight drizzle, seemingly of rain, sprinkling down onto the marble below. “Just another moment, and we should be off,” Kalam said, looking down at the boy as if he understood what was happening.

Then a portal like a wavy funhouse mirror appeared out of thin air just in front of the globe.

“Come now boy. Hurry up. We don’t have all day,” Kalam said, grabbing Boris’s hands, and pulling him through the portal.

* * *

“Welcome to the Great Hall. This my boy is The Library. It goes by many names, but I prefer the Library of Disappearing Things. Technically it is called Astra Library. But what good are technicalities in this day and age? Don’t you think?”

Boris noticed that the ceiling was made up of a canopy of stars. The marble floors had cubes that moved below their feet like holograms. The stacks of books moved about of their own accord, shifting and rearranging as they walked. There were rows of glass cases displaying volumes and artifacts, the origins of which Boris could only guess.

And there were portals instead of doorways, with inscriptions above them, apparently signifying where they went to.

Walking through the vast space, Boris’s eyes dashed from one amazing thing to the next.

“Where are we going?” Boris asked.

“To the Archive,” Kalam said.

“And where exactly are we?”

“Hard to say, my boy. Could be in the center of a star or the vacuum of space. The Library sits at the crossroads at the center of all of space and time. Galaxies drift by and the Library hardly takes note. We sit in a realm untouched by the material world, but still adrift in its seas.”

“And what am I doing here?”

“Well, that remains to be seen, Boris. You have a rare gift, but it is unusual to initiate one so old into the Order. Children of promise are usually kidnapped as infants and trained from birth.”

“What remains to be seen?”

“You do. You will have to pass a series of tests if you are to undergo the training to be an Abbott of the Order of the Library. As to that, the Library will decide.”

“Wait. What? The Library is alive?”

“Quite so, dear boy. Quite so. And if the Library finds you worthy, you will spend the rest of your days here, as an Abbott, traveling the cosmos, documenting the vagaries of life, and guarding the secrets contained in these walls. You will devote yourself completely to this and nothing else.”

“And why would I want to do that?” Boris asked.

“Let’s not put the cart before the horse,” Kalam said.

And with that, they arrived in a huge room with ladders reaching at least ten stories high, with a circular array of books stretching seemingly to the heavens, spiraling like a staircase and drawing to an infinite point somewhere in the ceiling above.

“And what is this place,” Boris asked.

“This is the Archive. The area that houses all of the knowledge of The Library itself. The beating heart of the place. And this is where the Library will sort out whether you are worthy to stay.” Kalam said.

“And what am I expected to do?” Boris asked.

“Sit here in this armchair. Don’t speak unless spoken to. And the Library will tell you the rest. Now, this part you’ve got to do on your own, but I’ll be back presently.” And Kalam left the room, clicking his cane down the marble hallways as he went.

Boris was left alone in the ancient drawing room, which suddenly seemed like a kind of tomb.

* * *

“It’s time for your first assignment,” a boy said, who entered the room from the door where Kamal had left.

Sohail Chowdhury had an angular, rawboned figure and silver hair. He wore a dark black suit and a purple tie. He was about six feet tall, with a confident, poised demeanor. He was at once dutiful and did not take himself too seriously.

“What do we do here?” Boris asked.

“We catalog possibilities,” Sohail said. “Come, let me show you.”

Sohail led Boris to an area in the Library where there was a book called The Cardinal of Ways. Boris tried to open the book, but it remained fastened shut. Then, as if reading him, the book sprung open to a particular page. Rather than words, it showed him an image, and it was the image of a cartoonist, Emile Cohl, in France, making drawings on a sketchpad for his magnum opus, Fantasmagorie. This was the first fully animated motion picture.

“See that one is a ‘First.’ We collect those. Document them,” Sohail said.

“Is that all we do? Find the ‘firsts’?” Boris asked.

“No, we do all the superlatives. The bests and the worsts, the biggests and the smallests, the mosts and the leasts,” Sohail said.

“But what’s the point?”

“Well, there’s only one place in all of the Universe, in all of time and space, where life exists. And the Library’s role is to document all of the possibilities of life. All of its vagaries. And life has sprung up and formed societies several times. Some things are the same. War and music, for instance. Art and marriage. Kings and drugs. Other things are distinctive. Like steamboats and racism. Like pornography and dryer sheets. And someone has to take the record, keep the books, and tell the stories,” Sohail said.

“But if the books themselves know about these things, what does the Library need us for?” Boris asked.

“That’s the thing, Sohail said. The Library is like an all-seeing eye. It sees but doesn’t understand. For that it needs us. To assign meaning. To describe the feelings a thing portends. The way it makes us feel. Its significance. We are the value proposition for the Universe,” Sohail said.

“The value proposition?” Boris asked, confused.

“Right. The value of a thing is what you’ll pay for it. So why would you pay more for a Monet or a Picasso than a Bondarenko? It isn’t quantifiable. It is up to the eye of the beholder,” Sohail said.

“But why did Kamal call it the Library of Disappearing Things?” Boris asked.

“Let’s not get into that right now. I don’t think you’re ready for that right now,” Sohail said. But this only piqued Boris’s curiosity.

* * *

Kamal sat in an armchair in his study, one hand holding his cane, the other hand holding a pipe that he smoked in long labored draws. The eddies of smoke swirled under the light of stars and the celestial glow of cosmic dust.

“You called,” Boris said.

“Yes, come sit boy,” Kamal said.

Sitting across from Kamal, Boris took in the volumes on the shelves of the study. One volume was titled, “The Library of Alexandria.” Others were titled, “The Library of Ashurbanipal,” “The Library of Pergamum,” “The Library of Dragons,” “The Villa of the Papyri,” “The Scrolls of the Elvish Grove,” “The Libraries of Trajan’s Forum,” “The Library of Celsus,” “The Imperial Library of Constantinople,” and “The House of Wisdom.”

“What is this room?” Boris asked.

“Ahh, the Hall of Wisdom. My study. A glossary of things that have disappeared from the Earth. A tomb of forgotten things. Things remembered, but the memories of which have faded to dust from lack of use.”

“And why have these things ‘disappeared.’”

“Who knows? Fundamentally, it is a consequence of times when people lost hope. And everything else was lost with it.”

“I see,” Boris said.

“Take a death certificate. It states a cause of death. Suicide. Murder. Liver cancer. Tuberculosis. Starvation. But none of these actually causes death. It is always the loss of hope, in the end.”

“Can’t this be prevented?” Boris asked.

“You are young. Your remaining summers seem numberless. The beacons that draw you in a thousand directions are a cacophony of lights. But imagine, if you can, that by the by, each one of those lights is dimmed and snuffed out. Leaving only the light within. And how dim is that light that sees nothing outside itself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You wouldn’t. How could you? Imagine a society of men living in the seas. Living out their whole lives on boats, searching for land. The boats, obviously, came from a time when men roamed and harvested wood from forests. But these descendants of those men have never seen land. They know only the sea. They can scarcely imagine where this wood came from. Now imagine a thousand beacons of light calling in the mist and dark of night and a million beaming stars guiding the stargazers along new routes. Each one is a beacon of hope. Now imagine if every light went out, leaving these seafarers in absolute darkness. How long then, before they give up the search, and at length grow tired of circumnavigating the seas in endless circles of subsistence?”

“That is a dark tale.”

“And a true one. Such a thing as this has happened. Too many times to count. And even now, it is happening again.”

“How can this be?” Boris asked.

“Once they lose hope, people’s behavior changes. They become reckless. They die of immediate causes through which despair does its work. Their worst instincts are unleashed upon one another. The darker angels of their nature take hold.”

“And this is happening now.”

“Indeed, young Abbot, indeed.”

“Abbot?”

“That’s right, the Library has chosen you. You have been classified.”

“What does that mean, classified?”

“There are different kinds of Abbots. Abbots of inspiration. Abbots of industry. Abbots of familial relations. Abbots of labor. And the rarest of all are the Abbots of Hope. We are only given one in every age. The last best hope at the end of the age.”

“Last best hope?”

“You see, Boris, you are here for a reason. It is no mistake that you led such a life as you have lived and no mistake that you understand every language. The reason for it is that you, and you alone, are what we call the Herald at the End of the Age.”

“And what is that?”

“It is your job, young apprentice, to find those beacons. To find them wherever they exist. Anywhere across the globe. To warn them and arm them with purpose. To give the age a chance.”

“But if all ages end, what is the point of a herald? What is the point of a warning?”

“The point is, young friend, that this Library, this record, all-in-all, is a catalog of possibilities. Everything you see in these walls has happened. Every page in every volume is a thing that life has wrought. An eventuality. Concrete. Real. Eternal. And until these things have come to pass there is always a possibility that things will turn out differently. That the age can be redeemed.”

“And I am the last best hope? Me?” Boris said.

“Who else,” Kamal said. “Who else but a farm boy from a one-road village in a war torn land, raised in the idyllic setting of nature and family? Who else but a wide-eyed lover of ducks and chickens and bees who can read all things? Who else could it be?”

“There must be some mistake,” Boris said. “I don’t want this responsibility.” And Boris turned for the door.

“Here son, take this with you, while you ruminate on what you must do,” Kamal said. And he handed Boris an untitled volume.

* * *

As Boris left Kamal's study, the untitled volume in his hands felt unusually heavy. The cover was a blank, deep blue canvas, but as he opened it, the pages glowed with a light he had never seen before. The first page bore a single word: "HOPE."

He began to thumb through the pages, and each page was blank. All they contained were the names and locations of men and women. Next to each name was a single descriptor. Next to the name Kathleen Jones was the word “Sacrifice.” Next to the name Kaloni Davis was the word “Redemption.” What was he supposed to do with these pages?

Suddenly, the Library began to quake, its vast halls echoing with a dissonant clamor. The ancient books on the shelves started to fade, their pages turning to ash.

Running back to the study, Boris exclaimed, “What’s wrong?”

“The Library itself depends on life for its energy. Read out a name.”

“Kathleen Jones,” Boris said.

The shaking stopped. A shelf full of once-vanishing books was restored, their covers brighter and pages clearer.

“You see. One dreamer can safeguard the wisdom of a million lives. Some shine with the light of ten million. This was just your first test.”

Boris, catching his breath, responded, "If this is just the beginning, I can only imagine what's next."

Kamal laughed, "The journey of the Herald at the End of the Age has only just begun. But remember, Boris, in times of despair, hope is our greatest weapon."

Boris spun the globe in Kamal’s study, placing his hands above, and when the portal appeared he spoke the name again, “Kathleen Jones” and entered into the streets of Camden, New Jersey to find the woman whose deeds might save the world.