I was suddenly teleported into a endless modern library with the smell of old leather and paper. There were no windows, just rows upon rows of tall shelves filled with thousands of books. The silence was deafening as I stood in front of an empty desk staring at the hundreds of volumes on the shelf behind me. Suddenly, one of the tall stacks of books moved slightly to reveal a single chair. It slowly approached me and when it reached my side, I sat down and watched the book glide back onto its stack. A few seconds later, the door opened again and another stack of books came out of nowhere and slid across the floor toward me. As they did so, the chair that had been placed by my side also rolled forward until it was next to mine. Then, after the last volume had crossed the threshold, the chair folded up and disappeared. The door closed once more and for the first time since entering this place, I heard a sound other than my breathing: the slow creaking of some ancient wooden beams. My mind raced through the possibilities of where I might be but all of them seemed improbable; could I possibly be dead? Was this purgatory or hell? I didn’t know if I wanted to find out.
After a while, the footsteps grew louder and then stopped right before the chair. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move along the aisle between two stacks. It was hard to see without turning my head completely around but there appeared to be a figure standing near the wall. But it suddenly vanished from sight. I waited a moment longer but nothing else happened so I decided to get up to investigate. When I turned around, I realized that the chair hadn’t actually moved. Instead, it had been hidden by a large black rectangle on the wall. I decided to enter the black rectangle and look around inside. Upon reaching the end, it appeared that I had entered a dark room filled with dozens of strange devices. Some of them looked like gears or cogs but others were unrecognizable. They ranged in size from small enough to fit on the palm of my hand to larger than my entire body. And each one had a tiny light glowing at its center which pulsed rhythmically. As I moved deeper into the room, the objects began to appear more familiar until eventually I found myself looking at a giant contraption that resembled an old-fashioned typewriter.
There was a pile of paper resting on the desk and next to it was a sheet of blank white paper. On impulse, I grabbed the sheet and started writing. For the longest time the only sound was the soft tapping of my fingers against the keys but finally I heard a faint click. A message appeared on the paper: “Please turn off your phone.” After making sure I wasn’t being recorded, I shut off my cell phone and put it away. Then, moving back to the desk, I sat down and continued to write. The words flowed easily and soon I found myself pouring out everything that was bothering me. By the time I finished, I felt better even though I’d made little sense. Then I noticed something strange about the ink on the page—it was changing colors as I wrote. What was happening here?
Once I’d written my letters, I took the paper and rolled it into a tube. With some effort, I managed to force the roll into the typewriter and strike a single key. Nothing happened. I tried again and got the same result. Frustrated, I quickly pulled out the sheet and examined it closely. Everything had changed: the font, the spacing, the style, and most importantly, the punctuation marks. All of these changes had taken place within a few moments. I knew that I couldn’t make any new mistakes so I quickly rewrote what I’d already written. Once I had finished, I returned the paper to the machine and pressed the ‘enter’ key. Again, nothing happened. So instead, I ripped the paper into pieces and fed them into the wastebasket beside the desk.
The typewriter sounded a loud hum and began to type. The pages came flying out of the printer and landed on the desk. I picked up one of the sheets and glanced at it. At first glance, I thought I recognized the handwriting and the tone of the prose. But there were several parts that didn’t seem right. Curious, I read the whole thing over and found that the sentences had grown shorter and less detailed. Soon, the paragraphs had become short and choppy and the words themselves had changed. Before long, the piece contained only twenty or thirty lines of prose. When I had finished reading, I placed the sheet back on the pile and went to sit in the chair.
A few minutes passed and suddenly I became aware of an intense heat emanating from the walls. I looked up and saw flames licking out of cracks in the ceiling above me. Flames everywhere! How was this possible? I was surrounded by fire and I was still sitting calmly in the chair. I had never seen anything like it before. My eyes scanned the room and I could see that the fire was spreading beyond the stacks and into the middle of the room. The temperature rose rapidly and the air was filled with smoke and ash. I was stuck here, trapped with no way to escape.