Allman

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. An eternity of stories returning to the earth as all life does. Even our books cannot last forever, at least with their original intentions intact. They may physically survive but their interpretations will eventually crumble the primal concepts. The only hope of a solution to the human condition was burned to the ground by ours truly. The library of Ertus-Cenrik was a collection of books started by a man who has been present all our lives but with different faces. This man witnessed the birth of religion, of Christ, the final battles of Genghis Khan, the pyramids in their original glory, and the fall of the stars which birthed humanity. This man claims to be and could very well be all of us who ever were and will ever be. He has lived the complete cycle of existence and is reliving it for its infinite time, time and time after, or before. The Allman, though this wasn’t a very common pseudonym,  is the one I will choose to go with, said that each cycle held a mostly subtle difference as if experiencing not one cycle but a multitude of cycles simultaneously, shifting from timeline to timeline. In fact, it was one of the few answers he did not hold on the universe, which was if each birth was within the same time. He recalls a world with the seas dominating all land we today see dry, as that world had no moon, but was it the same timeline we share? Or perhaps it is yet to happen to us in this now. But in this world, something peculiar happened. It was the only instance, according to the Allman that he had, in fact, shared his identity with the world. But the reason being is beyond our understanding. 

We met in a dream and he explained it to me as follows, or at least this is what my memory can recall; I shall let it be known of my existence in this world and time because I am to find the library of Ertus-Cenrik. I have been collecting the truths and sciences of the universes and countless timelines throughout all of my lives, or life, we could also argue. In every one of my reincarnations, I was plagued with dreams of extensive recordings of all my discoveries and that of the greats. I dreaded my dreams due to the fact that I was a slave to my apparent responsibilities. I was to write everything I ever learnt within these books in the library of Ertus-Cenrik. Now my dreams are not of work but of uncertainty. I dream of the library being here, in this world. Once I find these books, they could be shared with the world and there would not be a minuscule fraction of suffering and my cycles of life could finally come to an end. I came to you because I needed help in finding it. I came to you because you are as lost as I, and I need that right now.

I helped him search for the library through the various methods he later explained. See it was no ordinary library. The entrance was in a corner, or under a rock or in the reflection of a rippling pond and only when the pond was rippling. The exact details of the whereabouts left infinite possibilities of dead ends. I searched within the closing eyes of a dying lion and in the clouds as they turn into rain. The moment in which a child cries for their mother and in the pages of a burning book. The chances of me finding this library were hopeless. The Allman would regularly visit me in my dreams to try and help me but he could only suggest impossibilities and even told me that all of the places I search could, in fact, be correct but I had gone in the wrong time of day, or even in the wrong season. By this time the entire world was aware of its existence and most even helped in the search but the media soon saturated our minds with false announcements of its finding. Some even went to the extent of constructing false libraries underground and within the trees or underwater but they all lacked in the only thing they couldn’t reproduce. truth. 

In the search for truth, especially with the notion of it being at the tips of our tongues, had driven the world mad. The people protested. Religious sects began to divide and multiply, each with an equally crazy and yet plausible theory. Some said that it is written of our self decay and others said that we could not accept the truths even if they were written. Many argued that the truth is in our essence and that we drown it out. The catholic church detested the book as not of the works of God. The Jews denied the Allmans divinity as they once did Jesus’ and although within the Islamic world the divinity of the Allman was debated, the library of truths was said to just be an urge to resist, that a word so divine could only belong to Allah and come from the only prophet. New religions blossomed if we can compare the birth of an idealogy with no logical foundation a blossoming. The children of time began to chant in the streets that the Allman was the second coming whilst the other new cults said it was the work of the devil. 

In the office which overlooked Central Park, which was assigned to me by the state to undertake my searching, had the perfect view of the chaos which humanity had succumbed to. Every collectivity imaginable was waiting for mine and the Allman’s words. The Allman was revisiting the library in his dreams and finally knew where he was. The hallways he had walked an infinite times and the smells. But the chaos and noise. He could recognise it all, finally. He awakes and tells me. The halls I walked were of many branches which began at a point and curved out as it extended with many wider and narrower isles in between, finally narrowing back to a stem which was the thickest of isles. The smells were of wet grass but also of fuel. The sounds were of car horns and yelling. The library is in the shape of a leaf, in NewYork city. Because all the beauty was in the library which was dark brown and also lime green and the windows face walls of concrete. I took his logic and ran outside with all my speed but by the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. It was too late. Or it was to be.