Stories

The Library - Seventh Scene

“Sit down,” No. 5 ordered, “you’re late for class.”
‘What class?’ Gwen looked around and saw everybody was sitting in a semicircle around the speaker, ostensibly to attend class.
“Just sit!” No. 5 rolled his eyes, displeased by the time wasting.
No. 4 and No. 1 scooted over to make room for her. By means unknown, someone had produced a notepad and a pencil, sharpened to a fine point, and the two implements were now getting passed around the group until they reached her.
“What exactly am I supposed to do with these?” she whispered towards No. 4, trying to disturb the assembly as little as possible, but the latter looked annoyed by the interruption and didn’t answer.
She sat herself quietly between the two numbers, notepad in her lap.
“What’s the class about?” she leaned over to whisper in No. 4’s ear again, undeterred by the latter’s cold shoulder.
“The afterlife,” he answered curtly.
“The what?”
“Shhh!”
“Do you have anything to contribute?” No. 5 asked her directly, trying to put this class disturbance to good use.
“I believe I do, yes.”

The Library - Sixth Scene

The crickets were loud in the night air, Gwen never realized there were so many insects in the desert, and their combined noise was loud enough to pierce through the gasps of the fire and the monotonous rhythm of the conversation, slowed down by the smokes and the tequila.
No. 4 wielded a stick with which he kept poking at the fire, absentminded, and he looked as if he had retreated into a world of his own, the world behind his eyes, to ponder on the mysteries of existence undisturbed. He smiled a sibylline smile into the distance, which made Gwen think that world of his, behind his eyes, must have been pretty wonderful.
“Why do you say you were The Library?” she asked abruptly and regretted disturbing his contemplation the moment the words left her lips.
He turned around to face her, the smile still lighting up his face.

The Library - Fifth Scene

The purpose of the serenity path finally made itself clear a couple of mornings later when Gwen woke up very early to find No. 1 meditating at its end, perfectly at peace. 
One would have assumed he was watching the sunrise, but a closer look revealed he was gazing way farther than that, through the sunrise into another reality, shielded from perception by the limitations of our senses. 
An even closer look revealed he wasn’t even there. 
His animating force was still occupying his body, breathing his lungs and beating his heart, but his consciousness was not there, that which made him who he was, the unique personality impossible to mistake for another.
Gwen daren’t bother him in that state, which, even from the perspective of a detached bystander, looked like a deeply intimate experience. 
She just sat on a boulder, a short distance from him, watching him blend into the surroundings with the grace of a tree, or a cloud formation, breathing with the morning breeze roused by the first rays of light warming up the rocky mesa.
“I appreciate your discretion,” he whispered, as if from a dream, “but I need to let you know I’ve been aware of your presence the entire time.”
He opened his eyes wide and all his spirit rushed back into its shell, bringing him to full attention.

The Library - Fourth Scene

The next morning Gwen awoke to a sustained but orderly shuffling of boots, bags and paraphernalia and watched in bewilderment how the seven were quietly preparing for what looked like a military campaign.
They looked serious and none of them was speaking, which rose Gwen’s anxiety to panic levels. She didn’t dare ask what they were doing.
No. 5 spoke eventually.
“Are you coming?”
“Where are you going?”
“Fishing.”
“In the middle of the desert?”
No. 5 pointed to the creek in the valley. Its waters looked murky and ochre after the rain, and raged, powerless, against their banks, carrying dead sticks, straw and debris.
“What could possibly live in that?”
“Catfish.”
“I don’t know how to fish,” she hesitated.
“Suit yourself,” No. 5 replied as he walked to the door.

The Library - Third Scene

When Gwen was awakened by the chill of the desert night, she found herself in an empty house, dead quiet except for the eerie clinking of the bead curtains. 
The quiet of the desert reaches beyond silence; it preempts the emergence of sounds, like an anechoic chamber.
In the desert, one only hears two things: the wind and total silence.
She tried to go back to sleep, but her three nights in the desert had conditioned her to a different sleeping schedule. The empty house felt creepy at night, with no light and no sound, almost like a tomb.

The Library - Second Scene

“Welcome, light of the Sun, the fairest/ Sun that ever has dawned upon/ Thebes, the city of seven gates!” 
‘What in God’s name is this racket?’ Gwen jumped out of her made shift sleeping accommodation on the couch to watch a glorious sunrise accompanied by what sounded very much like an ancient Greek chorus.
“Sophocles,” a soft voice replied, so close she could feel its breath on her ear. She jumped off the couch and turned to face her morning companion.
“Antigone,” he clarified. “We haven’t been introduced, I’m No. 8.”
“Gwen. Whitman.” 
“Hard name to live up to.”
She mumbled, feeling ridiculous to introduce herself to an element of the set of natural numbers, and couldn’t resist her curiosity.

The Library - First Scene

She’d been walking through the desert all night. She figured it was better to walk at night, despite the cold; at least she wouldn’t get fried to a crisp in a place with no shade.
One could say Gwen was experiencing an existential crisis and was trying to find herself, even though she was only twenty-four and the middle of her road was so far into the distance she wouldn’t get a glimpse of it for another couple of decades. 
Regardless, she was indulging what she perceived to be her dark night of the soul, college behind her, unappetizing options in front of her, sensitive, idealistic and over-educated, the perfect symbol of her generation.

Fair- Chapter 31 Denouement

The meeting room of the Council Hall was filled with the electricity of anticipation but eerily quiet, as if the solemnity of the event muffled the usual banter and pleasantries. A request for a full plenum from Mrs. Eberhart was a rare occurrence, and even if quite a few of the ladies of the Circle knew what the meeting was about, they were still somewhat nervous about the details.
Mrs. Eberhart stood up and walked to the podium, waiting the customary minute or two for the room to settle down, a pause completely unnecessary now, given the frozen silence.
“I have had the honor to lead the Village Council for many years, and as such, was entrusted with the responsibility to uphold its laws, a duty I fulfilled with the utmost respect and of which I always strived to be worthy. It is unfortunate that our devotion to the law led us to results that sometime defy its very spirit. No justice is served when children are held responsible for things they have no control over, or can even understand, or when the brightness of our human spirit is overshadowed by fear. 

Fair - Chapter 30 - A Maze of Twisty Little Passages All Alike

The following Wednesday Giselle showed up at Lucille’s house for a nice cup of tea and a lengthy demonstration of her new embroidery pattern. The table in Lucille’s drawing room got covered quickly with bits of yarn, several types of canvas, scissors and pads of paper covered with sewing motifs, wristband pincushions, thimbles, cups and saucers, a teapot, a sugar bowl, a plate of cookies, still warm, and two tablets, one of which was Giselle’s, finally restored to proper functioning.
After a few hours the crewel technique was mastered and Giselle left, tablet in basket. She picked up the pace when she was out of sight and headed straight to the Council Hall where she interrupted a meeting in progress in order to whisper a few words in Rosemary’s ear, a feat unheard of in general and quite incredible coming from Giselle.

Fair - Chapter 29 - The Life and Times of Mary Coulter, Born Fair

“So,” Lucille said casually, “I hear that our safely guarded secret school is the talk of the Village!”
Mary looked at her with genuine bewilderment.
“Giselle told me all about it yesterday over a cup of tea. Oh, by the way, could you ask somebody to figure out how to make this work? She left it with me to get looked at,” Lucille pulled the tablet out of the basket and set it on the table. 
“How did she find out about this?” Mary asked, and a fleeting flash of fear shrouded her eyes.
Lucille forgot about her irritation for a second, when she remembered that the girl was hiding there to safeguard her life. Her previous priorities fell to the wayside for a little while, as she thought of the best way to reassure her niece.
“She listened in on the girls while they were talking in shop,” she said in a much softer tone. “It seems,” she hesitated, “that not every Council member is averse to the idea of all of you learning these things.”