In The Moonlight Hollow

Moonlight.

It shone an icy-silver layer of velvet over absolutely everything, bleaching out all distinct shape and colour and light from life until it appeared effectively as a clinical, slumbering world. Morbidly surreal in its new flatness, illusions conjured out of the darkest depths of the unknown mind, flesh abandoned nature, turning to polished stone and gravel until they lost their viscosity, becoming pools of mirrors laid flat against the palm of emptiness.

Silence descended upon the edge of abyss, ensconcing the guarded area inside in a spherical atmosphere of an almost sacred reverence - not even the shadows of the night dared to desecrate, nor did the napalm stars above. There was a certain sort of sterility to this place of night, fake marble, and shaded sterling, that made the echoing voicelessness simultaneously fragile and calcified all at once.

The bone-white tableaus, gleaming side walls of the structure shimmered in contrast to the waking moments of twilight - shades and smears of dark pressed against light, both illuminated by the reflection of the moon and hidden within the grasp of a layer of expertly twisted emptiness. 

The lack of life echoed throughout, stern and unforgiving. No night bird twitched, nor did any footsteps crackle against the ground. No breath stolen away at midnight. No manner of comfort, nor was there any hide or tail or hair of any movement. Just complete and absolute stillness. Perhaps it was this absence of humanity that venerated and raised the precious grounds far into the heavens; ethereal and pale in its terrifying beauty.

Like a raging storm, it was devastatingly consuming.

Like a raging storm, there was a moment of calm before it shattered.

The air regained its charge from among a lifeless sea of burnt-out candle husks. It moved tentatively at first, the gentle whisper of wind, before confidence strengthened its bones and banished all doubt. It gathered in ferocity and power, raw and sparked the slightest bouts of a feeling that is both unnamed and universal; fear and awe entangled in one melding mass, unable to tell where each one began.

Because, above all, it was simply not human.

An important distinction, it was. When people placed something so seemingly otherworldly upon a pedestal of terror and awe, it is usually for a good reason - it’s instinct that brings forth the fear of the unknown, as well abrupt knowledge that the strongest predator in the room is no longer themselves. To bow before the greater being; humanity’s most precious gift and curse. There’s a second in between, with that gut-wrenching, stomach-churning pull, that cements in this realisation. 

The fabric of the natural world is seen all around. 

The seams and stitches of the supernatural are not.

Inside, housed inside the thousands of rows of ancient rowan and ash trees - branches, planks and platforms, all of which were the spindly limbs and reaching arms of the creature nestled in between its cradle of parchment and paper and quiet passion - the stacks of books glimmered pale; a mimicry of the fair moon so high above. Spines pressed against each other, hard and soft, worn and new. Unless one picked up a book and opened its pages, not a soul would bear witness to the fleeing footsteps of a million words so lovingly scrawled. 

This is our design, the unspoken words seem to say. 

Like the art of children, it was more than just colour, air, flesh and light. It was the handprints of a thousand authors all at once laid out for the world to take delight in; separate and indistinguishable together, imbued with passion and a rare strength that displays with a flourish the best of humanity. Quiet beauty, and icy steel, co-existing side-by-side. The redemption that the people so desperately needed - to know that there is in them the ability to create, as well as to destroy. To wield the weapon or have the courage to lay it down.

The books may have been the flesh, but the people who cared its living blood.

The care and love so painstakingly poured out, forged from the purest parts of the heart, pumped through the heart of the structure. It gave the library clarity, gave it a semblance of peace and breathed life into stale stone and inanimate things. It was an intrinsic pattern, threads tying together a board of pins - like a spider’s web strengthening every fibre crafted until there was a core of steel and unshakeable knowledge seeping into every pore that it was surely unbreakable. Sticks and stones may snap or crack, but not a cavern system of bound and woven ties welding everything together.

The paper cut-outs that the children hung in a corner gazed back at the scattered decor of the reception desk with bright smiles that rivalled the sun. 

It’s alright, they say. We’re not perfect, but that doesn’t matter.

The clocks click silently from the walls, hung above their perch like a stern parent or all-seeing teacher. 

Behave, they say wearily, but there’s unmistakable fondness in their shifting face.

There’s silence, but there’s also life now. It’s a music that cannot be heard - a soft, whispering cadence that envelopes the room in feathery touch. It glides down, pressing kisses to the air, leaping off polished banisters and embracing everything in its strangely intense warmth. The rhythm of it soars, dips, sways and waltzes throughout - a chaotic plethora of noiseless happenings simultaneously existing all at once. It’s in a thousand wordless conversations, as well as the deep understanding of a kinship that binds all things inside that mysterious, curious space.

We’re here, they seem to say.

The murder mystery book clings onto the hug of its sibling, a thriller of some sort. They discuss blood splatters, and murder weapons and motives amidst conversations of how, ah, creative humans could be when provoked. Beside them, the book with that antagonist that was a killer dentist who used dental polymers to murder sighs as the other two chuckle once more at it’s ridiculous plight. 

At least, it growls, I didn’t use a brick.

Two rows behind, another crime book glowers at that.

The gardening book exchanges ideas with the crochet one. Art runs in their ink, after all, and one must always strive to be the best that they can. 

Crochet plants, the yarn book chirps happily.

Put the plants in crochet holders, the gardening book counter-argues.

Several rows in front, Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter looks around, and contemplates the best way to consume its fellow paper.

***

The library hums a song beneath its breath, as the first rays of dawn began to peak.

You cannot see us, it sings, an orchestration of carbon and light filtering through, but we’re still here.