And I remain silent

A year ago I asked my co-workers to stop talking to me. They gladly accepted. My working days have been in absolute silence ever since. This is a matter of mere professionalism, and has nothing to do with me being weird. I'm not saying I'm not weird. It is a fact that I'm a phenomenon; and not the charming kind, but the kind that makes you take your child's hand and say «oops, it's getting late, we'd better get going». And I think that's probably the reason why my job fits me like a glove.

I don't like talking about my job. People tend to trivialize it, which I bitterly resent. While it may be a dramatic assumption, I think of myself as an elitist version of the slaughterer man. When hearing about my job, people ought to cover their mouth with sorrowful countenance, or, at least, pretend to be horrified. At this point, I would settle for a cold «aha», whereas the reaction I usually get is one of enthusiasm and joy. I am told that I am lucky to work in such an interesting and inspiring place. It is interesting, but I’d never consider it inspiring. «You must read a lot in there», they say, as if burning books had some kind of equivalence to reading them.

Many books are written, but very few make it to the shelves of bookshops. The few that make it have the survival rate of little pond tadpoles; helpless and vulnerable beings in the waters of immense and merciless creatures. They have a few weeks to make a name for themselves; otherwise, the book ends up going back to the publisher. If this is the case, then the publisher makes an awkward phone call to the author. And we're not talking about a bestseller author, but a guy who has a job in an unrelated industry. Someone who have been writing for years between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., at which time they have to stop daydreaming and start serving coffees. Someone who, from the moment a publishing house gave them a chance, have been serving coffee with a permanent smile on their face and painting foam hearts on the surface of the cappuccinos, until months later, they get that call. Sometimes not even a call, but just a routine email. The tone of the message is usually positive and hopeful, but the undertone is the opposite: «your failing book has to be burned and wiped off the earth». And that's where I come in.

I find the whole process very dramatic, but that is not the opinion of my co-workers. To them I am the odd one out, when in reality they are the ones out of place. I think that's why they don't like me. They would like to see themselves as mere pawns of the publishing industry, but my presence is a reminder of the stark reality of our craft. I am but a crystalline reflection, a mirror in front of them echoing the darkness inherent in our work. It's not my vow of silence that makes them uncomfortable, but rather what it reminds them of. And I don’t blame them.

Burning books is one of the saddest jobs in the world, but also one of the oldest. From the moment the first book was written, there was someone who wanted to burn it. The library of Alexandria was our greatest feat, but not the only one. Far from it. Whenever religions shed their skin and previous scriptures had to be burned, we were the ones who took care of the outdated texts. When witches wrote notebooks of demonic spells and frog recipes to awaken weak virilities, we were the ones who destroyed their manuscripts. And we were also there during the cold war, burning books from both sides of the wall. And now, millions of burned pages later, we are still here. Every time a book goes out of print, the publisher sends us the remaining copies. We are the last rung on the ladder when it comes to books life cycle. Using the industry jargon, we are the epilogue after the epilogue.

Because of this, I try to be as respectful as possible. Before starting the process I pick up one of the copies, and read the opening words of the first chapter. Then I read the last words of the book, and then I look directly into the eyes of the author's photo. I usually perceive some kind of connection, as if, in that black and white photo among plastic plants, there was not a happy writer but a poor devil asking for mercy. As if, there was something that they could do to save their babies.

While the oven heats up I do my part, which basically consists of putting the books on a platform, and waiting for the red hellish signal. When the light appears on the side of that damned burnington 202, I press a button (red, too), and the little platform slides into that demon's mouth, with charcoal teeth, and a hundred tongues of fire.

I usually stand there, and don't look away as the books burn. Unlike onions and potatoes, words don't cry when getting burned, but they make their own sounds of suffering. Little crackles and cackles, sounding as if each of the literary world-buildings was suffering its own apocalypse. That pirate island being erased by an unexpected meteorite. That office building, kingdom of affairs, being demolished with its handsome characters still inside. The city of wizards purified by the ultimate fire spell. Hundreds of apocalypses happening at the same time, in the same furnace, and carried out by the same guy.

But today I don’t press the red button. When I look at the book I discover an elderly author. An old, serious face, who has never been published before. Everything in his book inspires gravity. It is a social drama based on a war period, and the author has one of those common names, like James Brown or Robert Thompson, from which springs a flair of pure seriousness. I'm not going to lie: there's a stale, closed-room feel coming out of that book. I would have never bought it nor read it - I would have burned it without hesitation, if I hadn't encountered this guy this very morning.

I saw him about forty minutes ago. I was having my latte at my usual coffee shop, and there he was, an old man with outdated colognes and a civilian castaway look - his eyes begging for sympathy. I, out of professional deformation, did not give it to him.

Forty minutes later, when I put the first batch on the devils’ platform, I am surprised by an unsettling coincidence. As I perform my mortuary ritual, there it is, that poor man’s face staring at me again from the back cover of the book. However, the face in front of me is more serious than sad. A stone face that has nothing to do with the vulnerable expression I have seen in the cafe, even though it belongs to the same soul.

I pick up one of the copies, and decide to go back to the cafe. The old man is no longer there, of course. I glance at his table, trying to find clues, as if I were one of the hundred detectives I burned in the past. As expected, it doesn't work. Non-fiction people don't leave clues. Then I hear the flowing cadence of a toilet, and I turn my head with hope, as if I had been waiting for hours to pee and were about to wet my trousers. And my hope is rewarded: it is him. And he looks sadder than before, which makes me feel a kind of egoic pleasure. I think he's moving his lips. Maybe it's a lost cause, or maybe he's just humming a song. I can't tell, so I'm tempted to believe in a compromise solution: he must be going through a list of good things in life, dissuading himself from jumping off a bridge.

Before he notices me, he spots the book in my hands. His eyes sparkle for a second, as if a fleeting childhood memory had come to visit him. Then he remembers that it's just a memory, and reality hits him back. I say nothing, but with a simple nod of my head, I prompt him to follow me. He does come with me with the obedience of a helpless lamb.

We enter the workshop, and I can easily see the surprise on my co-workers' faces. They didn't expect someone like me to have friends. No one objects, no one says anything. They’d better not. They have been bringing their children here since I started, and I have never protested, even though showing our work to children seems like a tribal abomination to me. 

We get to the Burnington area, and the author looks at the metal dragon with hallucinated eyes. Then he sees his own face, replicated ad infinitum on all those covers. He experiences an ecstatic moment of self-awareness (perhaps even life-awareness), which I would not dare to describe. I can't help but notice the curiosity of my co-workers. They have connected the dots between my companion and the condemned books. They look at us, but say and do nothing, as if they were attending the funeral of a stranger.

After five minutes of absolute silence, the author looks at me with wiser eyes. Then he gives me the subtlest of nods. I press the red button. The bolts whine, the machinery roars and the platform begins to slide into the darkness, which gradually reddens: The dragon's belly awakening. We both hold our breaths, as the books move into the unknown. Then comes the song of fire and ash. Then silence.

I think he says «thank you», but maybe it's just me hearing what I want to hear. By the time he leaves the building, there is a new cargo of stories waiting in front of me. Again, I press the button, and again, that machine that eats all kinds of stories and is always hungry for more, industrial ambassador of oblivion, opens its insatiable mouth. More words are burned. More words scream. And I remain silent.