From dark to dark

A unique time of year here at the library. There is the before Christmas slowdown right now, and the 6 o'clock in the evening, dinner time, slowdown. It is also slow because it's cold out, and because it is ever so dark right now. It's slow because no one reads anymore and because the local Highway is closed for a high speed chase. A light has gone out over the front door making people think we are closed. So it's slow. The library is quiet, not polite quiet, not ever so traditional and because the library patrons are quiet quiet, but quiet because our library is largely empty of people. 

We workers at the front desk have discussed everything, shelved everything and organized everything. And we now turn to the Internet.





Our hands poise over the keyboards. But our fingers have frozen. Our brains have stopped. Nothing happens. We front desk people turn to each other and shake our heads sadly. 


All of history and all the glorious future to the end of time plays out in a single moment before our eyes:


It is dark.

Entranced, we watch shapes in the fire.

We listen to the storytellers. We've heard these stories before.

There are no good books in the hut.

The castle library has nothing worth reading.

We rotate the knob on our giant radio looking futilely for a decent station.

Seven channels on our TV set, but nothing on.


Two hundred channels on our TV set, but still, nothing on.



A billion, or many more, pages on our Computers, all movies and music and writing and the history of knowledge at our fingertips, but there really is nothing there, nothing to see that we haven't seen a thousand times before.





Immersive reality allows us to alter the very nature of our environment. Every imagination is there to bloom at our wishes, but we have seen all the good ones already.







There are just these old books in the hut.









Entranced, we watch shapes in the fire.













It is dark.