The Experience of Being Alive

Chapter Six

Thanks mostly to the man, they had found their way back to the switchback staircase and climbed for what seemed like a long time. Binny complained that there weren't any elevators. The man said he thought he'd seen some escalators, and an old timey elevator, but he wasn't entirely sure he could find them again, and besides, the exercise was good for them.

"Is it good for us?" Binny said. "I mean in here?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" The man responded.

"Well, I'm not sure if it matters. I mean when I'm inside my book I'm kind of stuck in whatever I'm supposed to do there. And I don't think anything I do here affects who I am inside." Binny mused.

"Well. That's actually a great point. I hadn't considered that," The man said.

Binny thought about the little girl and the enormous fire. The fire made the girl's shadow long, but when Binny had looked back, the girl, her book, and her shadow were gone. What was real? Binny thought of bringing up what she'd seen with the man, but thought better of it. After all, who was he anyway?

When they finally arrived at a floor that seemed like it might be the same floor on which Binny had started her trek, Binny found a collection of comfy looking couches and plopped down.

"Break time?" The man joked.

"I guess. Maybe I'll read the book for a minute," Binny said, nestling into the old leather of the couch.

"Well, I'll see you around," The man said with a wink, and then he was gone.

Binny waved but she wasn't sure the man saw as he had already disappeared behind some tall bookcases.

The library was much less full than it had been earlier, but was still more populated than any library Binny had ever seen. The relative tumult was comforting. Binny cracked open her copy of Paris au XXe siècle, or Paris in the Twentieth Century as it looked to Binny, and started to read.

¤

Binny read the last sentence, and closed the book. She'd read the entire thing in one sitting. It didn't seem like a particularly short book. Binny just felt like she could consume it at a much faster pace than she ever had before. Maybe that was a byproduct of being born in a book, you could read them a whole lot faster.

As Binny stretched, it suddenly occurred to her that it was late. Or at least she thought it was late. Binny wasn't entirely sure what time it was. Did time even matter in this place? Her growling stomach was another clue. Eating was apparently still important in the Stacks.

Binny tucked the book under her arm, and set out in a direction that looked like it went away from the central ring of the level she was on – away from the hole in the donut as it were. Binny shook her head deciding that donuts were not the metaphor she wanted to use right now given her gnawing hunger.

Binny bounced from aisle to aisle, sometimes poking her head up above a shorter bookcase. She tried to follow some people, but people at this hour in the library were mostly stationary, nose buried in a book or watching movies in small groups on one of the large screens. This felt distinctly like post-dinner time to Binny.

And then, she was there, at a stone archway that led to the outer hallway that ringed the library level. Binny stepped through the archway and heard a tinkling and jingling, as if from a cascade of tiny silver bells.

She wouldn't have thought much of it, just another oddity of her new surroundings, except that everyone in the hallway had stopped their progress, and all of them were staring right at her.