The Crooked Spine

My life spiralled downwards like a wayward strand of corrupt DNA. My genes were flawed, and try as I might, I never found a place that would accept me. Acceptance was foreign currency to me. I could never allow myself to be. I was lazy in my ambition. Forever moving on so that I could not be found out.

Somehow I found myself here. More accident than design. I was in a place of ancient stone. Tired old wood. And books that knew more than I ever could. This was a city of learning. Built in contrast with another city intent on the same pursuit. Supposedly healthy conflict that drew to themselves the elite. I wondered about the definition of elite. I harboured cynical thoughts of cards stacked in the favour of the upper echelons of society. I had no evidence of this other than bitter experience. I’d seen friends fall by the wayside via lack of money and the lack of ambition of their parents and their parents before them. Taught to fail and settle for that failure with a grudging gratitude. Families applying inverse snobbery with a petty vengeance and shaming their offspring into what they saw as a good, honest living. Management was a swear word. Braun outdid brains. There was a huge mistrust of book learning. Something sly and conniving about that sort of cleverness. Each strata of society protected its own and secured the position of its children at the very same level.

Know thy place.

There were many libraries in this glorified town filled with manufactured cave after manufactured cave. A strange place pockmarked with pubs and eateries. One day, I found myself retreating to one such cave. Less in pursuit of knowledge, more a retreat from the noise and arrogance of the wilfully young and vibrant. These were people with the assurance of a bright future where I doubted I had any. And I was older than my peers, which made me even more of an outcast. I was neither one thing or another. A question I had never been able to answer. So, the refuge of the library was welcome, right up until I attended to my new environs.

Orderly collections of books intimidate and overwhelm me. I can just about cope with bookshops. The fact those books can be bought reduces their credibility. There is a transactional quality to them. I could take them home and use them in any way I wished. Not so, the books in this library. There are boundaries here. The expectant silence is policed by characters chosen because they constantly exude barbed judgement.

I could not wander here. My movements were stilted and I felt watched every step of the way. By the librarians. By the books themselves. I found myself in a maze and the shelves closed in on me. Threatening to crush my very soul. Here, my worth was measured as a decimal. Vast swathes of these tomes would never be open to me. I was gobbledegook gibbering at so much common sense.

The smell unique to books should have been a comfort to me. In secret, I love books. Some of them have even loved me back. I felt little love here though. I began to feel as though I could not read and that maybe I was losing my mental faculties. Soon to fail to understand what books were. Gawping at my surroundings. A slug trail of drool escaping my mouth and painting my chin in the most productive act available to me.

There was a place in this library though that felt like an oasis. The quality of the light dimmed and I felt less on display. As I calmed, I felt more focused and I realised that I had found a section of the library devoted to magic. A concentrated magic in the midst of all the magic that books are made from.

At first, I thought these to be books of fiction, but as I read the titles, I understood them to be serious works. There were even books by the knighted discoverer of gravity. I gazed along the rows of books with a new found reverence. My self-consciousness drifted away, along with any number of my thoughts. I was on a journey now and there was no perception of life beyond this shelf. I was being drawn in and my moth-like heart fluttered with a mysterious anticipation. A strange feeling of de ja vu, only I’d never been here before. I thought perhaps it was that I would be here again. Or my future self was reliving this moment with me right now. Was there a warning in this? Or a warm indulgence? I could not know. All there was, was a feeling of compulsion. Discovery awaited.

The book was a book amongst books in a library. A papery drop in an ocean derived from trees. Spine after anonymous spine. This was about as unremarkable and commonplace as it got. And yet there was something magical about this book of magic nestled alongside other books of magic. I felt its power. It spoke to me, but in words I could not understand. There was an allure to the sound and shape of those words. I stared at that one, particular spine and as my eyes were drawn deeper and deeper, the spine twisted and contorted.

With a force of will I tore my eyes from that book and staggered backwards. I hit the shelf behind me and panted with the effort of my retreat. Still I felt the pull of that tome. Entertaining childish fantasies of lifting it in a certain secret way only for a door to swing inwards, inviting me into a world of the impossibly secret.

The prospect of what this book held excited and enthralled me. I stepped forward once more with the intention of reading the title of the book and its author. But although the lettering was completely familiar to me, I could not.

I took a deep breath. There was only one thing for it. I had to lift that book from the shelving and examine it more thoroughly. Furtively, I looked around me. There could be no witnesses to what I was about to do. This was between me and the book. A moment of intimacy that promised much. Maybe too much.

I reached forth. Fingers tingling, even before they touched that strange, living spine. When we connected I felt a turgid thrill of electricity and something damp writhed against my fingers, threatening to envelop them. I wanted to withdraw my hand, but for some reason that was beyond me. Instead I pulled at the book and as I did, my heart seemed to stop and my vision swam.

Before I knew it, the book was in my left hand and I was gazing down upon the brown tinged closed ranks of pages. An assembled hoard eyeing me in aggressive anticipation. I could have stopped. I could have returned that book to the shelf. Dropped it even. Discarded it in so many discreet ways. I think I wanted to, but there was something lustful about the way I wanted this book. To have it. To possess it. To know it.

There was magic here. Something beyond my understanding. I was attracted to the danger it presented. The excitement. In this moment, I had the potential to be special. I was sharing the magic of the book. Had been since I discovered it. There was a golden moment here and it was for me and only me.

There was nothing for it. I had to go beyond the cover. No further foreplay. I would sink into the very meat of it. I could hold back no longer. I had to know this book. I tried not to think about the book’s previous relationships. What it had done to others? All books change the people they have relationships with. Each iteration. Each moment is different and the world itself is different for every literary engagement.

I felt the magic of all the books. I was surrounded. Standing in a small clearing. Observed by a gathering of books. I fancied I could hear them. Their words. The music of the silence that only ever existed in libraries.

Steadying myself, I prepared to open my special book. My first time. I would never take this step again. A turning point where nothing could ever be the same. The book opening to me and I to it. A union that none could disrupt or break. This then was the leap of faith that each and every book invites and expects.

The book falls open almost by accident. I have no agency. This just is. I am overwhelmed with incredulity which then subsides to reveal disappointment and horror at the sacrilege that has been unveiled by the parting covers. Where I expected page upon page of words, there is only a scorched ravine. The heart of this book has been gouged out and cauterised. The vandalism a terrible and violent murder. Not only of the book but of what might have been my destiny and a thousand more destinies. The sign posts to my one true path have been burnt away.

I want to cry. There are no tears. I want to close the book or at least turn away. But I cannot. For my eyes are locked onto the corpse within this defiled coffin. Nestling in this sarcophagus is a simple amulet.

Before I know what I am doing, the fingers of my right hand pluck the rusty chain necklace from the thing that was once a book. I place the book askew on a nearby shelf. I have no care for it now. The amulet is my only hope. I raise it reverentially over my head. The necklace is wide enough for me to slip it downwards and wear it. The amulet itself falls under my shirt and trickles down my skin. It is cold. Ever so cold. And as it settles on my chest, I feel an inexplicable burning sensation. The burning intensifies. I want to cry out, but I remember myself. It is not the silence I fear breaking, more the fear of being discovered. Most of all, I do not want to lose the amulet. This is mine. I have waited all my life to find what it is that makes me special. The amulet has waited an age for me. We are meant. This is my meaning and mine alone.

I am gripping the shelf with my left hand, willing the pain to abate. When it doesn’t I begin to panic. This is not right. Something has gone awry. Too late I grab at the chain and pull the thing that is threatening to burn me away as it did the pages of the brutalised book. Only the chain disintegrates in my hands. That is when I feel the orb press more firmly against my chest and move inwards.

I fall to my knees in a gross approximation of prayer. Only I am begging the universe not to do this. Wanting anything but the invasion that is taking place. Now I want to cry out. To scream. To make it stop. Only I can’t. There is an immense pressure against my chest and my breath is being squeezed out of me. Then I hear cracking and a dull wet popping sound. The amulet keeps going. Moving through me with a dark intent. When it reaches my spine I hear its voice and I understand what it is and what it means to do. I hear its story in one continuous, high-pitched litany, then everything goes black.

When I awake the library is in darkness. As am I.