The Library.(Kevin Hughes) I don’t know why I should bother. Nobody would believe me…nobody does believe me. I mean, sometimes…I don’t believe me. I don’t want to do one more lousy “Talk Show” and listen to experts tell me what happened to me. I sure don’t want to talk to any more of those fringe “New Wave” Christians who want to know what Jesus looked like. I stopped talking to them a long time ago. I never met Jesus.

Everyone thinks I either went to Heaven, or made it all up. I did neither. I just went to the Library.

Just the Library.


*****

It was an ordinary day. Cold. Bitter Cold. They told me later (in the Hospital) that if it hadn’t been so cold I would have died. But then again they told me I was dead when they found me…so what do they know? Somehow my body temperature went down to just above freezing, but never actually froze. They figure that is why all my cells didn’t rupture as frozen cells burst. They burst because Ice takes up ten percent more volume than water (or blood) and that, they tell me, is not good for your cells.

On the other hand, neither is slamming the back of your head onto an icy sidewalk. I was out instantly. Clean out. It didn’t even hurt, well…except for that first blast of pain and the awful sound of a melon popping. My Mellon. My head. It sounded just like someone dropped a cantaloupe from a second story balcony. I remember only that sound…and the pain. Then…nothing.

And that is how they found me the next morning. A “corpsicle” the Paramedic who found me said. My brain half exposed, my skull crushed flat, a puddle of blood pooled like strawberry jam around my head. They didn’t even check me for a pulse. They just shoveled me (literally, I read the reports…graphic, morbid, but fascinating reading) off the sidewalk, put me in a body bag, shoved me into the back of the Ambulance…and off we went. Nobody even sat in the back with me. They didn’t even turn the sirens on. And they stopped for coffee and a donut, which I think was crass at the very least. I mean really, have some respect for the dead…even if they are a frozen solid “corpsicle”.

I didn’t really mind at the time. Because, well, I was dead. And dead people don’t care a lot about their old bodies. Besides, I was already in the Library.

*****

One minute I was racing to my car on a very slippery side walk, the next second…I was in the Library. And what a Library!

Have you seen those pictures of glorious paneled libraries at the Better Institutions of Higher Learning? Or in the home of the outrageously Rich and Prosperous? Those warm masculine favoring dark walnut and red or green leather overstuffed chairs. The kind of place that requires that you be both erudite and know how to spell it. The kind of place that seeps knowledge and leaks wisdom. That kind of library pales in comparison to the one I was in. It was very Modern, in an Ancient way. I know that sounds confusing, but it had that feel of enormous age combined with Modern furniture and bookbinding.

And every book was bound. Red Leather backs with gilded letters in artful Calligraphy carved into their spines. Yet the shelves were some kind of glass that was as clear as fresh water and as hard as diamonds. You could not break one of those shelves with a sledge hammer. Or dynamite. Maybe a laser…but I doubt it. Nor could you smudge them, smear them, or spoil their cleanliness. The place was spotless.

I mean spotless.

Like Hospital Operating Room Spotless. Maybe more like those antiseptic rooms, sterile, dust free, kinds of rooms where they put Satellites together. Clean. Really Clean. Imagine a Roman or Greek Temple, designed by someone with access to Bilboa (Frank Gehry’s Masterpiece) and you get a general idea of what the Library looked like. It was marvelous.

I tried to remove a book…or two. No dice. I couldn’t budge them. I thought maybe they were glued in place, or maybe carved into some kind of semblance of a book, but not really a book. I saw other people come in, go down an aisle, pull out a book with ease, and go sit in one of the millions (no exaggeration…millions!) of quiet little nooks. I saw folks sipping tea, or a latte, while slowly paging through the book they had chosen. Some of those books were massive tomes.

I bet a few of those books were bigger than those old leather bound dictionaries chained to a desk. Some of them must have had more than a thousand pages. Some, I noticed were as small as a paper back. A few, were even smaller than those spiral pocket notebooks you kept in your shirt pocket in Eighth Grade. And some, were barely thicker than a Greeting Card. But all of them were beautiful to behold…and hold.

Finally, I went up to someone I saw who looked like she might work there. She was dressed in all white. What I would call “minimalist Fashion”. It suited her though. She was trim, alert, perky in a quiet way (and I know that sound as weird as Modern Ancient Temples…but if you saw her, you would say the same thing). She was humming to herself…and believe me, I could have listened to her humming for a long time. I probably did. Then I shook my head, gathered my courage and approached her.

“Miss, can you help me?”

She looked up startled. She stared at me. Her eyes grew wide, and I swear she grew almost translucent. Then…POOF. She was gone. Just like that. No goodbye. No “Howdy there…” Just gone. I turned in a complete circle. Everyone was looking at me, except her. She was nowhere to be seen. Have you ever been in a crowded elevator when someone farted. I mean a real “silent but deadly” fart. The kind that make legends out of just one example of it. The kind where relatives roll down car windows, or charge for the window and doors. Well double that look of disgust when they find out the culprit…and that is the way everyone was looking at me.

I felt foul smelling. Putrid. Disgusting. And all I did was ask a nice lady for some help. Talk about confused. What happened next didn’t clear the air, or anything else up either.

I heard a “popping sound” and then, right where she left me, she was back again. The lady in all white with the operatic hum. Except she wasn’t alone. She had towed in a taller and better looking man; and believe me, to say someone was better looking than her... is quite the statement. She was gorgeous. He was prettier. I would have bet my life that I would never have said that about any man. Turns out…I did.

He looked at me. I looked back. We both looked flabbergasted, except, well, he probably wasn’t drooling. Then he spoke. If you thought her humming was angelic, wait until you hear his voice. It was positively Heavenly Choir level. I closed my eyes just to let my ears fill up with the sound. His words didn’t match his voice. They were simple. Direct. Accusing.

“WHAT, in the name of all that is Holy, are YOU doing here?!”

I answered honestly. Turns out that is the only way you can answer anyone there.

“I don’t know. I think I fell. And now…well…I…am…here.”

“That can’t be.”

I answered honestly again…and okay, so what if I was sarcastic. I was bewildered, confused, and scared. See how you react to being somewhere you don’t know how you got there, where it is, or even what it is. Then have two of the most beautiful people you have ever seen- pop in and out of existence right in front of your eyes. Oh, and add voices and humming that shame any Philharmonic Orchestra you ever heard (on their best day!) and see how you feel.

“Obviously it can be. I am here. You are there. Where am I?”

They looked at each other…then spoke in perfect harmony. I mean it. Perfect harmony. It was so pretty I started to cry. The tall guy handed me a perfect handkerchief. The softest, cleanest, nicest hanky ever. I stopped crying to smell it. It smelled like roses spilled over a lavender bar of soap, and some sprinkled night blooming jasmine over all of that. I kept it.

“You are in the Library.”

“What Library?”

“Life.”

Then it hit me. The books were each the story of one life. And the only one who can read it is the one who lived it. People were coming here to read the book of their lives. A book with no malice or artifice. A book that revealed you as you really are. Footnoted when you did something good…or could have. Failures were annexed and cross referenced with the other lives you affected while living.

I wanted to see mine.

They both shook their heads….and that was more fun to watch than those commercials with Super Models flinging impossibly silken locks in long slow motion arcs. I was mesmerized.

“You can’t. You aren’t supposed to be here yet. Your book isn’t finished. It isn’t even bound!”

Have you ever been disappointed and thrilled at the same time? I was. Believe me, it is a weird feeling. Part of me knew I had more life to live. Another part wanted to read what they wrote about what life I had lived. It was not to be. Sigh.

“You have to leave. Now.”

“but…but…but…but…”

I know. I know. Not exactly the kind of flowing speech that would have influenced them to listen…but they did.

“Can’t I see a few pages? That can’t hurt…can it?”

They looked at each other. Then they smiled.

“Okay. But just a few.”

I won’t tell you what it was like to read about your own life from a perspective that holds no malice, no artifice, and no excuses. It is both humbling, frightening, and fascinating.

Like in second grade. I had a crush on Marcina Yoruk. I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. I would hold her books as we walked home from school. I did that until fourth grade. Marcina moved away. I read in my book about the pain I had when her Father smiled at me and said:

“Say your goodbyes to Marcina now, young man. We are moving out of state and you will never see her again.”

He was being kind. But I blamed him for taking away my girl. My anger was misplaced. It was in the footnotes. I wished some really ugly stuff on that poor man. On the other hand, reading a quote from Marcina (because I was in her life, even briefly, there was a record of her feelings about me in the annex) made my day.

She was about thirty three or so, when her nine year old daughter asked her if she ever had a crush on anyone in Grade School. She smiled fondly (not my words, it said so right there in the annex):

“Oh, yes, honey. There was this little red headed boy named Kevin. He was the smallest kid in our Class. Heck, he was smaller than most of the First Graders. But he was a strong little devil and carried my books, and his, with ease. He held my hand with his other hand. Sometimes he would come over on weekends and just walk back and forth in front of my house. Hoping I would look out and see him there.

When I did, I went out and talked to him, or played jump rope, or hopscotch. Sometimes he walked me to the corner park and pushed me on the swings. He made me laugh. I think he really thought he loved me.”

“Did you love him, Mom?”

Her eyes twinkled (it said so right in the annex). Memory was making her smile.

“I was in Fourth Grade Maria. (They both laughed - it was right there in the annex) But I sometimes wonder if we had not moved two states away, if he might not have been your Father.“

“You’ll never know. Did you ever try to look him up?”

“Oh, no. I did read about him coming home from the Army in our Alumni Newsletter…and thought I bet he looked good in Uniform.”

And that…was all that was in the annex- at least about Marcina and me.

There was more…but I only read a few pages. And most of it after the age of thirty three years, nine months, and twenty eight days…was blank. In fact, all of it was. I guess because I hadn’t lived those pages yet.

I handed the book back…well, they pried it from my hands. You can only speak honestly in the Library.

And then…well… I was back.

*****

My head hurt. There was a bag over my head. I started to scream. I heard two voices yell and brakes screech.

“What the hell?!”

They opened the body bag by pulling down the zipper, I almost darted out of it. But then the pain hit. I fell back down. The Paramedic kept saying over and over again:

“Jesus Christ, he is alive! It can’t be.”

I felt like saying, I just had this conversation in the Library. But I didn’t. What I did say was:

“I wonder if Marcina still likes me?”

They thought I was babbling. It was touch and go for about four days. The rest …well is history. I know my book is bigger now, And they had to probably change the annex a bit.

You see, Marcina sent me a card. I got it in rehab. (You smash your head on an icy sidewalk, and you get to spend an entire year learning how to walk, talk, and feed yourself.) She wished me a speedy recovery. At the bottom of the card she wrote a short paragraph. I kept it. And the card. Here is what it said:

“Kevin, you aren’t going to believe this, but my daughter - who is nine years old- and has her first crush on a boy, asked me if I ever had a crush on a boy in Grade School. I told her about you from Second Grade to Fourth Grade. I told her that if we hadn’t moved, I wondered if you might have been her Father. She never met her Father. He was killed in Vietnam before she was born. Isn’t that strange?

What is even stranger to me, and you won’t believe this Kevin, but I told her this the day you “died” according to the accounts in the Paper. It gives me goosebumps to think I was thinking of you at the moment you must have died. Please don’t think I am weird or making things up….it’s the truth. I do hope you are okay. It can’t be easy reading about yourself in the News every day. Not many people are dead for a day, and live to talk about it. That was a joke, Kevin

Heal fast. An old Classmate.“

It took a year for me to heal up enough to leave the Hospital. The News made a big deal about it. So I waited a few weeks for everything to die down. No pun intended. Then I went to Marcina’s house. I knocked. She answered the door and just smiled at me for a while. I smiled back.

“I got your card. I think we need to talk.”

She smiled even bigger.

“I think we do.”

Next time I go to the Library, I will read about Marcina. And my adopted daughter.

It should be good reading.

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