For the Library

I’m sorry.

So very sorry. I know you never asked for it, never asked for any of it. You never asked for anything. But you gave so much to everyone.

You nestled books into my hands, beautiful books with covers of gold and blue, leather, frayed red cloth. Books in many languages, books whose text crammed their pages with such intensity that I feared the words would leap from the pages and rip their way into reality. Books with bright, illuminated pictures. Books of poetry and books that contained so much truth that, reading them, I would wonder how this person who had never met me could know me so well. These books were everything. Safety, escape, knowledge of worlds I lived in and had seen and never would see but for the words on the pages. They filled your endless shelves, the air seemed to breathe, pulse with the energies and wisdoms and heartbeats of hundreds of books.

I never wanted to leave, never wanted to view the world through anything but your seaglass blue, curving windows. They filtered the light and made it seem as if everything was underwater. Sometimes I stayed for hours, saw sunbeams glow through the glass, then bright points of stars that glimmered briefly, I never stayed to see them set. Sometimes I only existed within your walls for mere minutes, but always when I left, it would be with arms full of books, my footsteps a little more sure. You were always there, always. Everyone loved you, everyone felt that magic that came from setting foot within such a sacred space. Old scholars, wise to the world, young students, consuming knowledge as if they could never know enough. Those there to help others and those looking for sanctuary. So many lost, frightened children. We came on the heels and hems of others who never looked behind them, we came to hide from the world, and left with the knowing that we could conquer it. We needed you with a desperation that no one else could see, small hands grasping in the dark for something to hold. I think you loved us the most.

I still don’t understand.

They say it started with a spark, maybe a lamp that tipped over, though we were all so careful, and the lamps had never fallen before. But you were paper. Paper and wood and dreams and memories, and those things cannot stand up to flame. They say they do not know, now you are beyond saving. They say it could have been intentional, that it was likely intentional. They say that someone destroyed you on purpose.

They say that someone destroyed you on purpose.

I don’t understand, I don’t understand.

How?

Why?

Why did I light that match and creep creep creep into the section of the thickest books why did I watch flames curl up the edges of the paper until the match burned my fingers and why did I drop it on the floor and why did I run and why did I hide and watch from nearby as flames reflected in your seaglass blue windows and then burned through your roof and they tried to put the fire out and nobody could and why did I watch and why did I cry and cry and cry and why did I do nothing and why did I tell no one how sorry I was

I am so so sorry.

First the flames, then the stars faded from the sky, now it is just dark, and I am alone, and the ashes of books are all around me. I write this into the blank pages at the back of a book. One of your books, small, a faded red cover, frayed cloth. I took it before I ran. The only survivor of what I did, the only witness.

The only one who will ever, and never know why.