Warning this story contains graphic depictions of anal sex. Please proceed with caution.
I have always been a weak boy. Growing up I was picked on every day by almost everyone, as everyone was stronger and faster - even the girls of the neighborhood. I was short for my age at any age, too thin to be chosen for any team. Gym teachers would ask me to jog laps rather than put me through the humiliation of forcing a basketball through the air. I took their pity with gratitude; I did not want to be the team captain.
My interests lay in the arts, in expanding my mind. Science fiction, fantasy... these were my sports. From the earliest grades till high school the actors changed but the story was the same? As my body grew and progressed towards adulthood my weight remained the same. I had no girlfriend, I needed none. Every day in school I would stare at the wall, eagerly awaiting 3 o'clock. I would rush down the hill from school and through the doors of the library, where I was greeted with familiarity by everyone who worked there. Librarians knew me by name; they'd smile politely with a hint of pity and ask "Hello Petey how was school?"
I would give them some made up reason, and keep moving by their desk. Deep in the stacks was my home, buried in the unique smell of slowly decaying paper and binding glue. Until closing every day I would stay, walking out of the doors of the library with the staff, just another long day. My mother and step father were glad that I had a safe place to hang out, and by senior year it became like I was just another staff member - part of the crew.
They finally hired me, and I could not have been happier. This library was my world, my salvation from the bullies that hunted me. Here I was safe, here I knew everyone and everything. I had favorite reading corners where the sun would hit the page just right, I knew which of the water fountains was the right temperature - I had sensitive teeth. To be paid for the things I already did every day voluntarily seemed unnecessary, but I humored the head librarian, Mrs. Wendell. She found me in the basement, perched atop a book ladder.
Looking up at me, she said "Petey, you're here every day and we all love you - would you like a job?"
I could barely contain my excitement when I swallowed and said "yes ma'am, I would."
Working behind the scenes gave me access to areas I never knew existed. I was given the door code to the staff cafeteria, where the staff swapped stories of sick children and angry parents. I discovered the unused book dumb-waiter, a small elevator that I was just able to fit my body into. I even snuck into the boiler room, where John the custodian sometimes slept overnight - our secret. On the day of my high school graduation Mrs. Wendell introduced me to the life changing catalyst that would end up altering the world - the Special Collections.
In the rear of the children's auditorium was where the library kept the proceeds from both infamous and anonymous donors. Framed letters from long dead politicians, ancient manuscripts carefully pressed in vellum, books dating back to the founding of the library itself. I was allowed to browse this room at first with her supervision, and as my trust with the staff grew, so grew my access to the Special Collections. One late night John gave me a gift, a silver key cut on his personal lathe in the basement.
"Kid," he said with a hint of alcohol on his breath "I know how much you love these old books. Here's a key, you can go in there any time after hours." Smiling he added "It'll be our secret."
I hugged that old janitor, hugged him like I would hug my father had he stayed past my first birthday. With my face buried in his blue coverall I whispered "Thank you"
Almost every night after closing, I would slip into the dark wooden door at the rear of the auditorium and carefully peruse the collection. I wore dust gloves and turned the pages with a pair of stolen cooking tongs to prevent any contamination. By the light of the overhead fluorescent bulbs I stared into the past, absorbing words, handwriting, etchings... it was all pure to me, the breath of the past. John would poke his head in and shake it lovingly, spotting me hunched over some yellowing tome or another, mouth unconsciously forming the syllables.
Here in the temperature controlled stacks I came across a simple book, thin and easy to overlook in between the bindings of its massive leather and gold brothers. The book resembled one of those pocket bibles in cover texture, black and age hardened. The front cover was unmarked, as was the back when I flipped it over out of habit. Smiling, I slowly opened the book, carefully lifting the cover in my white gloved hands. The inner cover was marked with a single symbol, a glyph of sorts.
At first I took it to be an ampersand, then a hash sign. With a puff of breath I carried it from the darkened stacks to the viewing table, peering down at the page. As I neared the light clamped to the glass topped table, the symbol resembled a backwards letter e, with the cross bar placed oddly high. Pinching my eyes shut, I placed the book on the table, careful to hold the stiff top cover gently open. Opening my eyes, I looked again in the light of the yellow incandescent bulb. The glyph now resembled a rune, something you'd expect an artist to scrawl along the hem of a magi's robe or perhaps line the helmet of a Viking berserker. The glyph-rune now called to mind an uppercase R, overlaid with an oddly drawn menorah.
The longer I let my eyes attempt to comprehend the lines inscribed on the page, the harder it was to pull a meaning from. I began to impossibly see layers to this symbol, now atop the R and the mangled menorah I could discern something that I would call an E, backwards with the lines drawn too close to the center.
The spell that the glyph was laying on me was broken by the sound of the janitor, John, beginning to wax the floors upstairs. I stared back towards the door, feeling strangely protective of this small, gnarled manuscript in book form. Something in the back of my mind whispered, hinted that this book was not how... not how this writing always appeared.
Smiling to myself I stood up from the desk, feeling and hearing my spine pop as I did. I carefully gathered the small black book in my gloved hands, carefully closing the cover. My eye was drawn to the symbol on the page, and as the cover blocked it from my view I could swear that the symbol was no longer flat on the page, almost as if the vellum page had depth. I needed an aspirin, I realized. My head was aching on the right side, a gentle throb that made me think of home and bed.
Every day afterwards I would make a point to stare at that old book, never daring to look past the first page. Something superstitious inside me warned me not to. I felt that if I did without gaining some understanding of the first strange, ever changing rune, I would ruin something sacred. Popping aspirin at the rate of two every four hours I would stare at the yellowing page, attempting to learn this rune-glyph the way I learned every other written word I encountered. It refused to be categorized, resisted memorization. The symbol carved into the thick pulp paper was closest to an optical illusion; the eye struggled to comprehend the shape etched into the animal skin page.
I was forced to give in when late one winter night after an exceptional marathon of "rune staring" as I began to call it; I felt a sharp pain and heard from inside my head a moist popping sound, somewhere between and behind my eyes. Struggling to control my heart rate I replaced the book on the shelf and slipped out of the back door, breathing heavily. Walking home all I could do was replay that moist sound that began and ended inside the most intimate part of my anatomy. It wasn't until I got home that I realized my nose was bleeding, and when I attempted to wipe that my left hand was shaking. Fearing a stroke, I lay down and prayed for mercy, letting thoughts of god carry me into sleep.
That night was filled with strange dreams of running through endless stacks of books searching for one book that I could not find. In these dreams I knew the name, but not what it was supposed to look like. Or I knew what the book looked like, but could not recall the name. I woke up in a cold sweat, still struggling to recall the name and appearance of the book that haunted my dreams. I remember the shock and horror when I rubbed my mouth and chin, only for my hand to come away damp and sticky. In the night, I bled once again - the blood soaking my shirt, pillow and sheets. In the middle of the night I must have had some sort of hemorrhage, the sheet near my head was ink black with congealed blood. After cleaning up and trashing the sheets, I went to work like usual - just another day.
That night I decided not to visit the book room, thinking about the book caused my head to throb on the left side. Besides, I don't think waking up in blood soaked sheets is normal by any means. These days have been weird, my head feels pressured inside. I feel like everywhere I go, people can see me. They stare, watching me as I move. A part of my brain thinks that it is paranoia, that no one is watching me. I'm not special; I keep reminding myself as I walk to the library, trying to avoid the eyes of other pedestrians. I'm not special, and yet it seems to me that the more I think this, the more I try to convince myself that no one is looking at me, the more they do. Remember that scene from the Matrix, when Neo is following Morpheus down the street in that training simulation and everyone is parting like the red sea? A little bit like that.
