Dystopia

by Charles Eugene Anderson

librarian danced to him and he said to all who were around him, “In this world, I’m the hidden treasure. I’m the owner of the land of eternal life. Since I have passed through the hardships of this world, I have become the water of life.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said, and the two librarians came over to me, and helped me restart my dance. At first, I was unsure of myself, but after a time I became liberated in the dance, and I soon felt the release he talked about. I would be free if I let him make all the choices, and I was as happy as I could’ve been because all I had to do was continue with the dance because nothing else mattered.

  After a while, the Augur noticed me again while I danced, and he asked me a question I wasn’t expecting, “Why didn’t you ask me about your books?” The dance of the librarians didn’t stop, but I did for a short time when he said that. “The ones you have been hiding. I have already sent librarians to your house and they will retrieve your wasteful collection.”

  I said nothing because I didn’t care about those books anymore, and I only cared about the slow spinning dance with the librarians I performed while I was in his presence.

  “Did you know what book the English produced first? For them it started over there…there at Westminster, in London,” he said pointing to someplace that only he could see, but when I looked, I could also see the bookbinder’s shops set up under an old cathedral. “The bookbinders have been with us for a long time and yet you don’t know the book they published? No, I suppose not, and then I’ll tell you.”

  “The Bible,” I said before he spoke, and as I spoke, I made the choice of stopping the dance around the Augur. This time he didn’t seem to care.

  He continued his story about the binders, “No, not the English. They were interested in other things. Their first book? It was about chess…it’s here in the stream but no one reads it…no one pulls the information from the data. But I have, and in it…it uses chess as an analogy for life. You have castled your king, Chance. With those books you’ve hidden, and you were hoping I wouldn’t find out about them.” “How could you’ve known?” I asked, but soon was distracted. I was slowly returning to the man I had once been.

  “Tsk, tsk, did you think we didn’t know about your books and your own little game of chess you were playing against us?”

  “I wasn’t ashamed because I no longer cared about them. I cared about my wife though and the shame I had brought her, but the books. I didn’t care about them anymore.”

  “Your friend, he went to the bottom of the world. They went all the way to the South Pole to escape me, but they couldn’t. No, not even there…there’s your friend, and he’s there on my business. No, no one shall be wasteful not even there. Nothing is out of reach of my data stream.”

  The image faded away from that of my wife to the pole, and there at the Amundsen-Scott station. I could see the geodesic dome that overwhelmed all of my view’s attention. The scan changed, and I could see Nestor, he was standing in one of the buildings, and he was dressed in clothes that would protect the man from the very frigid climate of Antarctica. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing he was okay. He was inside one of the buildings there, and I could see all the books that the colonizers must have brought with them to that place…there must have been thousands of books, and they all gleamed in front of my eyes like rare gems.

  I could see the Nestor I remembered. He was wearing cold weather gear, goggles on his head, his hood was pulled back, and a coat that made my analyzer seemed much bigger than he was. Even though he was inside the station, he still wore the jacket that protected him against the cold. “Chance, is that you…what has happened?” he asked looking at me. “You’ve been transformed into a different creature; you now know your skills, you’re a much deadlier piece on the game board.

  “Good, you’re there, bring back those books to me,” said the Actuary to Nestor.

  Nestor said to us, “But instead I think I’ll stay here. Someone must protect these books. The librarians cannot have all the fun. I will protect them. Dawn does not come twice to wake a man, and I fear if I give them to you I will never wake again.”

  “A binder, the bookbinders are reborn,” said the Augur with a look of disappointment. “You cannot protect them forever.”

  “I think, I can,” said Nestor, “As you must realize it’s not too cold for me, yet it’s too frozen for you. It’s too icy for your river to flow here in this place. You’re a chess player, and yet you don’t already see that I have you in checkmate.”

  And it was then that I realized what had happened. Nestor had played a pawn, and there he had exchanged it for the power of the queen on the Augur’s chessboard. He had moved himself to the back-row of his opponent’s board and there he would be able to attack in any direction. Nestor had declared victory against the Augur.

  “What about your family?” I asked.

  “Most of them are here already, or on their way…I have thought of everything,” he said to me as if it was almost too distasteful to continue the conversation. “Chance, I must go and sever the connection. Goodbye for now, my friend.” Nestor had become a keeper of books, maybe even a bookbinder, but I knew at some other time in his life he would be transformed into an angel, but that’s another story.

  The Augur looked at me and said, “So the cycle is complete and a new one has begun.” Then he changed his tone and said to me, “Once upon a time, there will be a time, when new books will be written, and those books will spread like new seeds upon the wind.”

  I said back to him, “Once upon a time, there was a river guide who was right in the middle of his own life, in the middle of his own tale, and life gave him a new path through the rapids.” It was then I knew I was a free man. I wanted to leave the island. I would go home to my wife, and I would whisper to her a poem that I’d remembered from a previous edition.

  It was time for me to leave the river and go back to the real world. I knew I wanted to get back to Janet, and when I got home, I would decide if we’d follow Nestor to that faraway place. I knew there were many currents in the river to choose here, but those would have to wait. I needed to get back to my wife.

   

  If anyone asks how do the clouds unveil the moon? I’ll untie the front of her rope and say, ‘Like this.’

  If anyone asks how Jesus raised the dead? I will kiss her on the lips and say, ‘Like this.’

  If anyone asks how God’s pure embrace reached? I will take her and say, ‘Like this.’ – Rumi

   

  Let the injunctions of God descend upon us like drops of frozen rain.

  – From the prayers of the Third Librarian

   

  I’m in the present. I wake up, and I’m not where I thought I was going to be. When I’d been here I had been next to Janet. The train. The Bomb. The dead mother and daughter.

  I’m not inside the train, but I’m next to it. The revolutionaries of the bookbinders are wearing gasmasks. I can’t see their faces. There’s no emotions. They’re shooting those of us one the train. One by one the bullets are shot and they killing us off. I turn my head to see Janet. My wife is alive. She pulling my arm.

  “Wake up, Chance. Can you get on your feet?”

  I don’t say anything. I can barely hear her. My ears are ringing.

  “Let’s go,” she said pulling on my arm. “Get up.”

  I stand. I follow her. We leave the train behind. We leave the killing behind. I don’t feel good. I want to rest, but I can’t. I keep focused on Janet. I trust her, and she’ll find someplace safe.

  We’re blocked. It’s terrorist. I can’t see he’s face. I can see his gun. I push Janet. We tumble away. Rocks, cement, and bushes hide us. I can hear Janet. She’s breathing hard, but she’s not speaking.

  I can also hear the terrorist speaking to someone I can’t see, “They’re down there someplace. Should I go down there?”

  “No time. We gotta leave. The shuttle-line guards will be here soon.”

  The first terr
orist yells down the hill at us, “You’re lucky. We’re leaving now, but know you’re lucky. Next time…”

  Janet is crying. We’re still alive.

   

  Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. -Rumi

   

  The two bookbinders faced each other across the chess board. They had started a new game and the pieces were mostly in the right spots on the board. Before the first bookbinder said the other, ‘Black moves first. You need to let me first this time because you moved first the last time.”

  The other bookbinder thought about and thought the request was reasonable, “You should start first. Move one of your pieces, please.”

  The game between the two bookbinders would start the game, they would play and finished it. The two of them did it every day. Once the game was over, they would look for books to bind. They hadn’t found any in a long time, but it didn’t stop them from looking.

  While they were playing, the first bookbinder looked up. He said to the other, “There’s another bookbinder out there.”

  “Does he see us?”

  “No, but I see him. It’s cold where he’s at. Soon he’ll want to burn books to keep warm.”

  The second binder said, “I don’t care. He’ll have to wait for his turn to play in our game.”

  “I agree,” said the first bookbinder who look back at his game, and thought about the next move