BOOK STACKS & COUGH SYRUP

Apr 6th 2011, 14:16 by E O Hatterpol | KUIPER BELT

I DIDN'T plan on waking up facedown in a pile of books with drool all over my cheek... but I did.  At least I got some sleep.

I don't know how long I slept there - 8, maybe 10 hours? - but I know why nobody came across my quasi-paralyzed corpse-heap.  I had ventured deep into the Flybrary's bowels, further into the book stacks than I've ever gone.  I just got this urge to explore - to fill in the map, so to speak - & I just kept going until I literally collapsed.

Granted, I probably didn't pass out solely from sleep-deprived exhaustion.  I bet it also had something to do with the cold syrup-induced delirium.

I blame the stupid Kuiper Belt; it bangs on the hull nonstop!  There's just enough time between hyena wind chimes to forget they're there and take the first few steps into unconsciousness, only to be snatched back by another horrible screech.

The next part of my story won't make sense unless I explain how Flybrarians catalogue their books.  Basically, it's a competitive system where popular titles vie for a slot up front.  If you can't compete, you're pushed back into obscurity.  Gradually, you're pushed so far back that you become impossible to find.  It may sound like a strange way to do things, but I've found that 99% of what I'm interested in is easily retrievable.

Still, the system is flawed.

As I passed the fortieth or fiftieth stack, mild cough syrup hallucinations mounting, I noticed that some awesome books were hiding among the rags simply because they were old and forgotten.  If somebody checked them out, they'd probably move up a stack or two in the rankings, but they'd never see the kind of demand that up-front books do.

It's tragic because if you weren't looking for it, you could really miss some great literature.  I know a lot of you aren't going to believe a library as sophisticated as ours would ever do something like this, but I found copies of Rabelais catching their dusty deaths back there!

(Don't worry!  I rescued them on my way back to the Whale's Mouth.)

Maybe I was losing my mind a little bit, but I swear I found some really strange books.  There were books I thought authors had just made up for their short stories, like the Anglo-American Cyclopedia.  There were books I recognized & had definitely read, but when I flipped through them I found they had different endings or different character names than I remembered.

I was way back in the stacks inspecting books published on other planets - which made zero sense, cold medicine or no - when I heard a noise behind me, like the sound of somebody turning pages too quickly & ripping them.  It might have been the cough syrup, but I was reminded of the sound my father's Bible made when he flicked its thin leaves.

I had lost all inhibition by then, so I didn't pause even for a moment to contemplate any dangers before dashing off in the direction of the noise.  I don't know what came over me; it was such a strange sound I felt compelled to discover what was making it.  As I picked up speed, the sound intensified, as if scores of thinly-leaved books were having their pages turned.

I ran & ran & ran, & then I kept running.  I got lost for a second & stopped to see if I could hear the noise again, but I was breathing too heavily.


Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye in the half-gloom two or three book stacks over.  I dashed through the rows at a furious pace... then I don't know what happened.  I think I tripped over some abandoned books, nosedived and shut down.

What a ridiculous time to succumb to exhaustion & self-medication, right?  When I awoke, there was nothing to be seen or heard except the low rumble of our power stations.


I don't know what it was, but as soon as I shower this drool off my face & soak up some of that cough medicine with a hearty breakfast, I'm going back to find out.