As a lonely introverted young man, I have always loved going to the library and reading books to pass the time. Ever since I was a child I had fallen in love with the library. Now I’ve recently moved to a new city, and decided to visit the local library.
So I enter into the library. The first thing I see is a semi-open atrium. On this atrium there are huge staircases that go into each of the four floors. I walk in. I’m at the first floor and there is the checkout desk. The librarian is sitting at the desk, resting her chin on her hands, staring down into a book. She’s a really beautiful woman, cute face, golden hair, and also big round boobs. Hmm, very nice. I get a good look at her, just for a second or two, not more. To tell the truth, I have gotten quite good at looking at women for only a second or two. Any longer, and they notice I’m staring. She looks to be around her mid 20s, about my age.
I walk past her and not say anything. “Damn it, you coward”, I thought, “you could at least have said hi or something, or even asked for help pretending to look for a specific book.” Yes, since I was new here, since it was the first time I was even in this library, that trick would have worked. Then I would have asked to get to know here more. But no, I just walked past, as unfortunately has happened many times before. I look at a woman but never go out of my way to meet her.
Anyway, she was reading a book. I’m sure she didn’t notice me walk in, let alone looking at her. She never averted her gaze from that book, always staring into it the whole time. Yet somehow I feel as if she was aware of my presence. Can’t explain it, chalked it up to just my feelings.
Anyway, I spent the entire rest of the day exploring the library, going up and down the staircases in the atrium on the east side of the building. And it you go onto a floor there are first tables where people sit and read, then rows upon rows of bookshelves, and then the floor opens up once again to tables where people sit and read, and there are large floor to ceiling windows instead of staircases. I wound up on the third floor. I found an interesting book about Ancient Egypt, and went to sit at the second tables at the far end of the floor, next to the large floor to ceiling windows.
I was reading, and It was 2:20 PM. I told myself that I’ll read until 3:00 PM, and then I’ll go and take this book to the checkout table, and be on my way out. I got so carried away reading. I thought that 20 minutes had passed already, and yet when I looked at the clock on the nearby wall only 10 minutes had passed. It was 2:30 PM on the clock. I continued reading some more.
After what felt like 10 minutes, I looked back up at the clock. It was still 2:30 PM. I thought that I had gotten sucked into reading, and fooled myself into thinking that more time had passed than it really did. I had heard of people getting into “the zone”, when you’re so productive and focused into your work that time itself seems to stretch out and you get much more done than you thought was ever possible. I had gotten overjoyed at this realization. “Let’s try this one more time”, I thought.
Approximately 10 or 15 minutes later, I looked back up at the clock. It was still 2:30 PM. That’s when I noticed that I wasn’t hearing the seconds arrow tick. And as I came closer, the seconds arrow was indeed not moving. Now I thought that the clock had stopped, and that I went over the 30 minute mark that I’ve set for myself. I don’t usually carry my phone with me because I don’t want to get tracked. I stood up with my book, looking for a clock. There was none visible. Behind me, with his back turned towards me was sitting an old man in his 60s, reading a book. I came up to him, and exclaimed, “Ahem”, to get his attention. No response or acknowledgement. “Excuse me sir, are you busy?” He didn’t even look at me, he acted like I didn’t exist. Probably too engrossed in a book himself. I know that I shouldn’t bother people who are at the library. Not wanting to appear rude, I didn’t press onto him further, and resumed my former strategy of looking for another clock on the wall.
I walked around the tables. Nope, no clock there. I then went through the isles of bookshelves. There was a teenage girl in middle school or high school sitting next to one of the bookshelves, all curled up on the floor with a book. I could clearly see that she had a phone. I asked, “hey girl, can you say what time is it?” No response, she didn’t even look at me, didn’t even acknowledge me. Doesn’t she know that she ought to respect her elders? Seriously, what do these schools teach to kids these days?
I continued walking until I reached the first tables. There was a clock. “Oh good”, I thought, until I saw that it too had stopped at 2:30 PM. And everyone here was sitting at the tables, just reading their books. I saw a muscular man in his 40s, wearing a business suit. His muscles showed under the business suit. And he was just sitting at one of the tables, staring into a book. I walked up to him, and asked, “Sir, excuse me sir?” “Do you see the clock stopped, do you know what time is it?” He didn’t answer me, just continued looking at his book. The silent treatment. He surely must be mad at me. Damn, people here sure are picky with being undisturbed, reading their books.
Just as I was about to walk away, I heard the ticking on the clocks once again. I turned around, and the seconds arrow of the clock was moving again. It was now 2:31 PM. Then I see the man look up from his book, reach into his bag, and grab his water bottle. “Hey sir, sorry for bothering you earlier. I didn’t mean to be rude.” He answeres, “what’s that now?” He claims he never heard me ask him what the time was. Probably just an attempt to brush aside his mistake of having ignored me, so as to not get into an argument. Fair enough. I ask him again what the time is. He pulls out his phone, and it also shows 2:31 PM. Strange, the clocks could have stopped at the same time, but the phones would have kept on going?
I ask some more people what is the time on their phones, it all matches up with the clocks. I go down two more floors until I reach the ground floor where the open atrium is. All the clocks read the same time, as if they all stopped at 2:30 PM. I ask other people if they noticed their clocks stop around 2:30 PM. No one seemed to have noticed. Fair enough, most people in the library are reading books anyway, so they probably wouldn’t have noticed if the clocks stopped all of a sudden. But surely someone would have noticed the clocks stopping more than half an hour? And surely their phones wouldn’t have stopped too, all at the same time?
Anyway, I get weirded out, and I go out to checkout. I give the librarian the book. The scans it, and looks me in the eyes with a mischevious smile. She asks me how I like the library. I tell her that it’s my first time, and that the open atrium is nice and I’m finding everything ok. I don’t mention to her about the clock incident, thinking that I’ll be percieved as a weirdo. “Do you want to come back again?” I say “yes”. The entire rest of the day, all the clocks match the clocks in the library precisely, no matter where, in the grocery store, at the gas station, or in my apartment.
I come back within a few days, after finishing the book. I walk past the librarian’s desk at the main entrance. She’s still sitting at the table, and looking into a book. I notice the book that she’s reading, something about “time dilation”. She doesn’t even look at me, as I smile at her. But I get the feeling as though she somehow acknowledged me. I don’t know. Anyway, I walked up and down the aisles, looking for some interesting books to read. Several times as I’ve been taking books off the shelves, for a split second I felt as if someone were breathing down my neck. I looked around, yet there was no one around. This repeated several times throughout the day. I felt a breath or something into my ear, and then all of a sudden it was just gone. I don’t know, was it my imagination or something. Was there truly a ghost in the library? On several occasions I feel as though I am being watched. Anyway, I look around and see nothing out of the ordinary, convinced that it’s my mind playing tricks on me.
I walk around the corner of the aisle, and there is a clock on the wall. Suddenly the clock stops ticking. I come closer to look at it. The seconds arrow has indeed been paused. I look at the clock dumbfounded. I think to myself, “Do clocks stop regularly in this library?” And then suddenly the clock starts ticking again. I figure that the seconds arrow had gotten stuck for a few seconds. I feel as if I’m being watched, look around, there’s no one there.
I pick up a book about the Hollow Earth, sit down at one of the tables, and start to read it. I’m reading the 18th page in the book. Then all of a sudden I’m looking at the 50th page. Like I blinked or something, and then instead of the 18th page it was now the 50th page. One moment I was looking at the 18th page, and a split second later it was the 50th page. I don’t know what happened there. I just flip back to the 18th page and continue reading where I left off. I don’t have any explanation for how or why that happened. I try not to think about it. Nothing else uncharacteristic happens that day, and I checkout some books with the librarian, who is still smiling at me, almost secretly giggling. I don’t know, I got the feeling maybe she likes me?
The next time I’m at the library, weird stuff starts happening again. On several occasions I feel like I’m being watched. Then I feel like someone’s breath onto my face, ears, and neck all at once. Like it happens for a split second, and then all of a sudden it’s gone. This happens several times as I go throughout the library, in several different parts of the library.
Then I’m on the fourth floor with the astronomy books. I pick up a book called “Planetology 101 - The discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope”. I’ve always been interested in planetology, so I lean with my back against the bookshelf and start to read. All of a sudden an object falls on my head from above. Ouch, that kind of hurt. I see it was a book that fell from above. I pick it up. It’s a book about love, sex, and the finer details of the female reproductive system. A “how to” manual, for a lack of a better word. Where did this book come from, in the astronomy section? I figured that someone had put this book haphazardly on the top shelf, and it fell down when I leaned on the bookshelf, and bonked me in the head. I pick up both books, and start heading back down the isle.
Then I get the feeling as if time stopped once again. I know that the library is typically a very quiet place. Even so, if you listen intently, you may hear a noise. Such as people walking around, people getting books off the shelves or flipping pages of books. Occasionally a child may run through the aisles, or someone might slam a book shut a bit quite too loudly. And yet it was as if all of the sounds just stopped in the library. I could only hear my own two feet stepping on the floor. I start walking down the aisles.
I walk out of the aisle into the open area where there are tables. I see all the people are sitting at the tables completely motionlessly, just staring into their books. I’m about to interrupt the awkward silence and say something, when I notice a man in the other aisle next to me. He looks like he’s walking, yet he is completely frozen in time! I come up to him. In shock, I can clearly see him frozen in a walking gait. I don’t know how he can even stand like that withough falling over. The only explanation is if time was paused for him somehow. I don’t know what’s happening! I start quietly freaking out. I start running perpendicular to the aisles. In each of them I see people frozen in time. They are either walking, or climbing onto the bookshelves. Normally they would fall over, but the time has been stopped for them! I even see a teenage boy with a yo-yo in hand. Yes, it’s a pendulum, but it’s not going down, it’s suspended in mid-air! I don’t even know how that’s possible. I start to question my sanity.
I walk down the aisle, not knowing what to do, occasionally glancing back at the boy to see if the yo-yo starts swinging again. Nope, it’s still in the same position as it was when I casually tiptoed past him. I continue walking. All the clocks are stopped. I only hear the sound of my feet on the floor, as if I’m the only one inside this building. I’m a bit shocked and weirded out, but mostly I feel confusion rather than fear.
But then I thought I heard something. I stop to listen. I clearly hear that somewhere in the library, someone else is walking. Within this space of stopped time, when everyone else is frozen still, when no one else except for me is supposed to be moving and aware, I hear someone else’s footsteps. I immediately freeze, or at least pretend that I’m frozen just like the rest of the people in the library. I hear the footsteps ascending up the stairs. Yes, there is clearly someone else here! Now I get a wave of dread coming down my spine. I wonder, what is the source of these footsteps? Who is here?
And then I hear the footsteps come up to the fourth floor, where I’m at. They’re walking along the common area overlooking the atrium, where the tables are. They’re heading in my direction! I stop to listen. Then another wave of dread rolls over me as I hear the footsteps making an uncharacteristic clicking noise. Click, click, click. It’s as if someone is walking on stilts! Not shoes, not boots, stilts! Click, click, click. The footsteps are now coming closer to me. Pretty soon they’ll reach my aisle. I feel as if they know that I am here.
Not wanting to be caught by whoever is walking on those stilts in the library, inside this space of stopped time, I immediately bolt down the aisle. I don’t care if they hear me or not, it’s evident that they know where I’m at. I try to put some distance between myself and whoever it is. I hear the stilted footsteps start running after me. I don’t look to see who it is, I just run ahead. Then I hear that the footsteps are actually running not in my aisle but in the aisle to my right. Click! Click! Click! I think to myself, “they’re trying to outrun me in the other aisle and corner me inside of this aisle.” I run faster, determined to reach the end of my aisle before the stilted footsteps reach the end of their aisle. Click! Click! Click! The stilted footsteps accelerate massively, as if skipping every other step, as if they’re running on thin air. I can hear them running past me in the other aisle. I am hopelessly outmatched. I hear them reaching the end of their aisle and coming around the corner, as I still have several meters to get to the end of my own aisle. Then a figure steps around the corner, into my aisle, blocking my run, nowhere to go.
It’s the librarian! She is wearing her usual clothing, a white blouse, blue skinny jeans, and high heels. So that’s where the clicking was coming from. If it were any other person, even a normal man, I would have been convinced that I’ve seen the devil himself and quickly bolted back down the aisle. But her feminine beauty struck me, and I just stopped and stared at her dumbfounded. “Ha ha ha ha ha!” Her laughter echoes throughout the library, a bit unnerving considering the absence of all the other sounds. “Welcome to my world!”, she exclaims. “I have the power to stop time within this timespace, relative to the rest of the world”, she explains. I ask her for more details, “How is it that we are able to move, while everyone else is frozen?” She answers me, “Time can flow at different rates in different timespaces. Time flows normal in my timespace, but for everyone else time is stopped. What seems like hours in my timespace is only a split second in the real world. I can go into my timespace at will, and I have brought you here in with me as well. And now we will be together! Look!”
She grabs me by the hand and runs with me down the aisle. We get to the open area with the tables next to the big floor to ceiling glass windows. She starts waving her hand in front of the frozen people’s faces, flipping pages in their books, and even taking one book out of their hands and replacing it with another one, all the while giggling like a naughty, mischevious little girl. “It’s all like a split second to them.”, she says, “They won’t know what happened. They don’t notice anything that happens in my timespace.” I am shocked and amazed that she can do this. Is this the power of a god?
She starts laughing and yelling at the top of her lungs, noise echoing all throughout the building. Yet no one responds. No one even notices. “You see, they won’t see or hear a thing that we do here in my timespace. It’s all noise-proof”, she tells me. “And now, let’s try an experiment to see just how noise-proof my timespace really is”, she says. Right in the middle of the room, she starts undressing herself, motioning me to do the same. I follow her orders, and agree to do the experiment with her.
Now I keep coming back to the library every single day, and her timespace.