Dixon Carter Lee
Headliner
- Joined
- Nov 22, 1999
- Posts
- 48,682
The New York Public Library had always seemed magical to me, from its glass encased Medieval Bibles, to its marbelled columns, to the the two Gothic Lions which guard its entranceway. And inside, one of the greatest research Libraries in the word; a treasure-trove of historical material gathered from the four corners of the world, and from the annals of history. I could spend days inside its halls, haunting the shadowy shelves, reading volume after volume beneath the green lamps, unearthing lost cities, traveling to Panama with Teddy Roosevelt, exploring the African coast with the Portuguese, matching wits with Hercule Poirot, introducing Maro Polo to the Great Khan, raising Mephistopholes for Dr. Faustus, discovering radioactivity, laughing with Petruchio, and inventing the telegraph. To me the New York Public Library was a virtual world in itself.
A world which soon became too real. Much too real.
My name is John Smith. No lie. If dreary were a virtue my parents would be deacons of the church. They couldn't come right out and call me "Dull as Dirt" so they named me John Smith instead. They were farmers, though, for the life of me, I can't tell you what it was we actually farmed. I never saw anything come off that land except dust. That's what we were, a family of dust. We ate dust, talked dust, looked like dust, and slept in tight little balls of curled up balls of dust, like bunnies under the divan waiting to be swept away.
Somewhere around my tenth birthday I got a copy of "Huckleberry Finn" and suddenly found myself flying down the Mississippi River and meeting up with con men and having all kinds of spectacular excitements. Suddenly the world wasn't dusty. It was glorious and sunny and full of adventure. From that time on I did nothing but read, read and read, every chance I could, whenever I wasn't forced to spend an afternoon in the fields with Pop tilling the dust.
I moved to New York as fast as I damn well could and took a job as a librarian in one of the midtown branches, though I dreamed of working in the main library. I'd visit it every weekend. Somehow, books "read" better there.
I wouldn't say I didn't have any friends (outside of Pip and Fagin and Christopher Columbus), but if I did I can't tell you their names. I had my books, and that's all I needed. I didn't much care for characters of flesh and blood. They never quite behaved the way I thought they ought to, and always seemed to want to know things about me, about how many children I had in my family and what did I think of the new shortshop that just got traded and whether I liked Pop or Jazz better. I found that if I carried a book with me I could retreat fairly well with the excuse, "I've just got to finish this chapter."
And so I had more or less retreated from the real world, to the more glorious world I found within the volume filled stacks of my church. And so there I was, praying over a copy of "Ivanhoe", when I saw Professor Guilgood approach. He was another library haunter, like me, and we often spoke about whatever new books or research we happened to come across. The Professor was forever trying to find some mystical holy grail he called "The Twin Orbs", an apocryphal pair of spirit stones from some tale he found in an obscure book on Hopi magic.
"How goes the search, Professor?" I asked as he sat beside me.
"My boy!" he said, excitedly. "I've found them! I've found them! Buried beneath the Arizona desert, just outside of Flagstaff, exactly where you thought they might be.
"Me?"
"You were the one who suggested pre-European burial sites." He said, clapping me on the back. "It took some doing, but I managed to find a site where some of the earliest members of the Hopi nation were buried. Thirty feet down I found them – the Stones! Just as the texts described them!"
"Shh!" said a woman nearby, trying to read some tiny paperback she'd brought with her.
"That's amazing." I whispered. "I'd love to see them."
"I have them my boy! I have them here!" said the Professor, not trying at all to be quiet, and taking two stone balls out of his satchel. They may have been painted at one time, but 10,000 years beneath the Arizona desert had turned them black.
"They just look like, well, round, rocks." I said.
"The inscriptions on the stones we found near them tell us exactly what they are." said the Professor, excitedly. "They're 'Journey Globes'. Not quite sure what the Hopi used them for, only that they're quite ancient, and were supposed to be quite potent."
"How do they work?" I asked.
"According to some of what I've read they're supposed to work upon contact. You just touch them, you see, and you're instantly transported."
"Where?" I asked.
The Professor shrugged. "Who knows? I've been holding them for two weeks now, and the only place I've gone is to the Newark Airport."
"I suppose they send you on a Vision Quest, or something like that." I surmised. "If the balls send you away, what brings you back?"
"Only one ball sends you away." explained the Professor. "The other brings you back. At least I think that's how it goes. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I have them! I HAVE them!"
"Shhhhhhh!" said the woman, deep into her Jackie Collins.
"Can I have a look?" I whispered.
"Certainly my boy. I was hoping you'd be here today. Take one."
I grabbed one of the stones. It felt heavy and cold in my hand.
And in the next instant I was standing in a field on a grassy hill. A tribe of Masi warriors were killing an antelope beneath the canopy of a nearby forest. Above me a Pterodactyl slid through the air cawing for its young. A volcano rumbled in the distant, ashing the azure sky with a grey plume of smoke. A castle rose over a nearby hill. And beside me a wide river tore through the landscape, its lapping waves carrying a small boy on a raft.
"Hallo." said the boy, poling his way over to the bank. He was smoking a corn pipe and had a face so full of freckles they looked like the were about to push each other off his face. "I'm Huck." he said. "Who are you?"
In my hand I held one stone ball. Something told me that I'd better find the other one – and soon.
A world which soon became too real. Much too real.
My name is John Smith. No lie. If dreary were a virtue my parents would be deacons of the church. They couldn't come right out and call me "Dull as Dirt" so they named me John Smith instead. They were farmers, though, for the life of me, I can't tell you what it was we actually farmed. I never saw anything come off that land except dust. That's what we were, a family of dust. We ate dust, talked dust, looked like dust, and slept in tight little balls of curled up balls of dust, like bunnies under the divan waiting to be swept away.
Somewhere around my tenth birthday I got a copy of "Huckleberry Finn" and suddenly found myself flying down the Mississippi River and meeting up with con men and having all kinds of spectacular excitements. Suddenly the world wasn't dusty. It was glorious and sunny and full of adventure. From that time on I did nothing but read, read and read, every chance I could, whenever I wasn't forced to spend an afternoon in the fields with Pop tilling the dust.
I moved to New York as fast as I damn well could and took a job as a librarian in one of the midtown branches, though I dreamed of working in the main library. I'd visit it every weekend. Somehow, books "read" better there.
I wouldn't say I didn't have any friends (outside of Pip and Fagin and Christopher Columbus), but if I did I can't tell you their names. I had my books, and that's all I needed. I didn't much care for characters of flesh and blood. They never quite behaved the way I thought they ought to, and always seemed to want to know things about me, about how many children I had in my family and what did I think of the new shortshop that just got traded and whether I liked Pop or Jazz better. I found that if I carried a book with me I could retreat fairly well with the excuse, "I've just got to finish this chapter."
And so I had more or less retreated from the real world, to the more glorious world I found within the volume filled stacks of my church. And so there I was, praying over a copy of "Ivanhoe", when I saw Professor Guilgood approach. He was another library haunter, like me, and we often spoke about whatever new books or research we happened to come across. The Professor was forever trying to find some mystical holy grail he called "The Twin Orbs", an apocryphal pair of spirit stones from some tale he found in an obscure book on Hopi magic.
"How goes the search, Professor?" I asked as he sat beside me.
"My boy!" he said, excitedly. "I've found them! I've found them! Buried beneath the Arizona desert, just outside of Flagstaff, exactly where you thought they might be.
"Me?"
"You were the one who suggested pre-European burial sites." He said, clapping me on the back. "It took some doing, but I managed to find a site where some of the earliest members of the Hopi nation were buried. Thirty feet down I found them – the Stones! Just as the texts described them!"
"Shh!" said a woman nearby, trying to read some tiny paperback she'd brought with her.
"That's amazing." I whispered. "I'd love to see them."
"I have them my boy! I have them here!" said the Professor, not trying at all to be quiet, and taking two stone balls out of his satchel. They may have been painted at one time, but 10,000 years beneath the Arizona desert had turned them black.
"They just look like, well, round, rocks." I said.
"The inscriptions on the stones we found near them tell us exactly what they are." said the Professor, excitedly. "They're 'Journey Globes'. Not quite sure what the Hopi used them for, only that they're quite ancient, and were supposed to be quite potent."
"How do they work?" I asked.
"According to some of what I've read they're supposed to work upon contact. You just touch them, you see, and you're instantly transported."
"Where?" I asked.
The Professor shrugged. "Who knows? I've been holding them for two weeks now, and the only place I've gone is to the Newark Airport."
"I suppose they send you on a Vision Quest, or something like that." I surmised. "If the balls send you away, what brings you back?"
"Only one ball sends you away." explained the Professor. "The other brings you back. At least I think that's how it goes. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I have them! I HAVE them!"
"Shhhhhhh!" said the woman, deep into her Jackie Collins.
"Can I have a look?" I whispered.
"Certainly my boy. I was hoping you'd be here today. Take one."
I grabbed one of the stones. It felt heavy and cold in my hand.
And in the next instant I was standing in a field on a grassy hill. A tribe of Masi warriors were killing an antelope beneath the canopy of a nearby forest. Above me a Pterodactyl slid through the air cawing for its young. A volcano rumbled in the distant, ashing the azure sky with a grey plume of smoke. A castle rose over a nearby hill. And beside me a wide river tore through the landscape, its lapping waves carrying a small boy on a raft.
"Hallo." said the boy, poling his way over to the bank. He was smoking a corn pipe and had a face so full of freckles they looked like the were about to push each other off his face. "I'm Huck." he said. "Who are you?"
In my hand I held one stone ball. Something told me that I'd better find the other one – and soon.
