The Pripyat School Librarian

The large rectangular windows were speckled with spiderweb-like cracks. Years of heavy snow and brutal winds had battered the library walls and left a few gaping holes in the plaster. Pieces of the green wallpaper had begun to peel, revealing dark brown trails of rotting wood. Bookshelves had toppled over, sending their precious cargo careening into the floor. Those books, their pages faded from exposure to the elements and their bindings snapped on impact, carpeted the floor.

You could only imagine the mess Duste Bunni had to wade through every morning.

Duste braced himself for another harrowing day of searching. He hopped out from under an encyclopedia that had dropped from a desk, which had landed on its pages and made a tent out of the cover. A quick stretch showed that the dust around his middle was thinning. Thankfully, there was plenty of debris around. Duste took his grey paws and began to scoop up old hair and scraps of paper, stuffing them in the region that would make up his tummy. A few moments later, he was back to his usual self: grey tuffs of animal fur that he had found under a desk, a few pieces of hay that had drifted through a broken window, and, of course, dust of varying shades. All resulting in a small but sturdy rabbit.

Confident that he wouldn’t fall to bits as he worked, Duste jumped onto the leg of an overturned chair, then made his way to the only desk that remained intact. Anything electronic had been taken long ago, leaving the desk bare. Duste had been too frightened to demand the looters leave his beloved sanctuary. But that didn’t matter. Duste didn’t feel comfortable dealing with anything electronic, too afraid that a stray bit of static would set his little body ablaze. Besides, the books were all he needed.

He wasn’t a very good librarian. He was too small to lift more than a few ounces of paper, and he wouldn’t dare try to scare off the occasional bird that took shelter inside the building (even if their droppings spattered his already battered tomes). But it was his responsibility to take care of the Pripyat library. After all, there was more to being a librarian than taking care of books.

Duste scratched his ear with a hind leg. No books had been returned, it seemed. Then again, he wasn’t sure when a book had been checked out during his working hours. He hopped to the floor, causing a cloud of dust to float into the air as he landed. Quick as a…well, a hare, he bounded over countless damaged pieces. He nearly tripped over an atlas of the world and only stopped his run long enough to close the cover of a Ukrainian history book.

Duste stopped at one pamphlet that had managed to land upright, leaning heavily on an upside-down agricultural book. The title was in bold letters that Duste could not read, but the picture showcased a family of four surrounded by a circle. A giant mushroom cloud was in the background, casting a shadow over an otherwise bright orange cover. Duste tilted his head. Something stirred in his mind: a fear of something he could no longer quite remember. A bird cawed outside, shaking him out of his reverie. With one last glance at the pamphlet, he bounded toward the library door.

A librarian he may be, but only in name. After all, how could he call himself a protector of books when his collection lay in such a sorry state? No, Duste could not do very much on his own. He stopped at the library's rotting doorframe. He checked the hall, noting that the usual grime had not been disturbed, which meant the thing he was looking for had not come this way. Duste sat back on his haunches, wishing he had a mouth from which he could sigh.

His memory was as fuzzy as his hindquarters, but sometimes when the sun rose early in the morning, he could recall vague moments of his life.

An elderly woman sitting in an ancient wooden chair, organizing children's books on a rack.

Small babes, some barely able to walk, playing with blocks on a soft carpet.

Kids talking excitedly as they held books about…well, anything. Everything.

A bell signaling when they came and left. The library was a safe place. A warm place. Clean and beautiful.

Duste began to jump through the halls, looking inside classrooms and cafeterias for a human. That was who he needed so desperately: someone who could come into his library, declare “What a mess!”, and clean it until it was as spotless as it had once been. Yes, it would take a while. Duste wasn’t asking for a miracle. He just needed someone to pick the novels off the floor and give the area a quick dusting (excluding himself, of course) to bring some life back to his home. Duste may have only been bits of trash and dirt, but he knew the library merited care. He knew, on some level, that the children’s books disintegrating into dust deserved to be in the hands of some tiny tot.

But it seemed that today would be just like the others. The only creature Duste found was a fox that growled at him as he tumbled by. Other than Duste, not a soul strolled the school halls. Duste thumped the ground a few times, trying to make his irritation known. A dust cloud puffed up with every stomp. No one came to investigate the noise. Ears falling, Duste turned back toward the library, beginning his long journey back as the sun began to set.

He was nothing if not a determined creature. He would get a good rest and try again in the morning. Someone would come. Duste was forgetful, but he knew one thing: humans always made sure to take care of their possessions. The children, despite being so small and destructive, would always bring back their books on time. The old lady would always go through her prized storybooks and undo every dogeared page or bent cover. So, he didn’t worry as he tucked himself back under his encyclopedia; didn’t worry as the wind howled outside, promising a snowstorm. Because even though they had left, someone would come for his library soon. It was too important to be abandoned.

Duste would take care of it until they returned. That was his duty as the librarian of Pripyat.

Pripyat School No. 2 was an elementary school in Pripyat, Ukraine (I used the English spelling of the city in this story). Pripyat was only a few kilometers from Chernobyl when the infamous nuclear disaster happened. Because of this, the school was abandoned. Here’s a link to a picture of the school library, which was the inspiration for the setting of this story: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cmdrcord/13951935547.

Another inspiration was When the Wind Blows, which highlights the destructive power of nuclear weapons and the effects of radiation on an elderly couple. Though the story I wrote does not necessarily talk about the aftermath of nuclear fallout, I still think it is interesting to include it here.