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Description
I walk along the same road as once I did, not long ago, though it feels a lifetime behind me. The yellow gravel stains the ground as the fresh rainwater slowly slides off its surfaces into puddles and ditches, ponds and swamp. The road, potholed, marked like the face of the moon is even more cracked than before, though some of the old scars, The Crestfallen Sigh, The Tearful Chalice, The Shallow Lagoon, some have been paved over with tar and pitch and paint and memories almost gone but still faintly whispering. The squirrels and turtles that failed to cross the road, both victims in their mutual hatred and bloody warfare in my youth, now merely the decaying remnants of the proof of mankind's ingenuity, flattened not by small boulders and fallen gates, but by mere rubber and aluminum. The air is still, silent but for the distant roaring of these mechanical monsters that we have tamed, the fauna too afraid to even call for help retaliating against their larger foe. A rabbit passes onto the road and spies me, leaping immediately to bound across the asphalt and hurry off before I might even consider to give it chase, rushing for the brambles and low-lying branches in case I was swifter than others of my species. I watch it go, staring in silence for a moment, then shift my bag, continuing on toward my destination, eying the skies warily as gray clouds roll on the edge of the horizon.

The library, where the thirst for stories that my parents and godparents had instilled in my young mind could be sated, briefly at least. Invited by an old friend, I acquiesced to returning to the town where I grew up and grew out of. A small stop on my book tour, just a table where I would be signing and talking to the patrons. I see the lines of paint in the parking lot, faded and repainted, covered in tar and painted again, the curb revealing what I already knew as a child, that it was only ever patched up, never healed fully, never whole for long. The library's facade has changed since last I was here, but still I see the trees I sat under, waiting for my ride when my family had plans I had no say in deciding, staying in that quiet shade, hoping to meld into the background like I had into the books. The air inside is cooler than the humidity outside, not quite the stale musty scent of older libraries I have come to visit later in life, but still not as sterile as some of the newer ones as well. There is the faint tapping of keys as adults use the terminals to search for work, where teenagers message their friends and catch up on gossip, and children squirm and make faces as they try desperately to concentrate on the game they are playing. True, even I had been doing some of those things when I left this town, but I remember days when all I would do was look up books by authors I had read and put in hold requests for more of their work, or followed the fractured, tangential and non-sequitur trails from their work to others that might interest me.

I saw the bench above the heating vent I used to rest upon in winter, flipping through Gary Paulsen and eying the designs Jack Frost made on the window, hoping that I got a new video game or Transformer for Christmas, which I tended to get from my parents and aunts and uncles, receiving typically more clothing from my godparents, though the bike one year, a sled another, both had kept my marvelously entertained in the seasons and years I used them. Still, the best gifts I had been given perhaps was not the toys or clothes or vehicles prepped for the adrenaline a young boy, even one as introverted as I, might desire or need. They were the days I was permitted to find books for myself, to collect them like others might frogs and crickets, their songs of battle and triumph and tragedy singing louder in my mind than any of the mundane creatures surrounding the building as it came close to closing time. The books of rockets and starships, spies and thieves, vagabonds and villains, heroes and hope. Yes, the comics as well, which I still relish with delight, though my tastes have mostly matured. And there was the window itself, covered in handprints at the bottom, and spiderwebs at the top.

These were not the spiderwebs weaved by Shelob and Anazi and Arachnae, but mere shadows of their poison slathered mandibles and fangs, these webs barely large enough to catch the flies buzzing round the restroom, let alone the fierce dragonflies on which nations of little fey had rode in exploration. And here sat the table and chair and sign, my stage, for whatever it was worth. Most likely only a roll of quarters with change returned, plus the cost of the books sitting not on display but on a box set to the side, the uppermost tattered and dogeared. I sigh, pushing it underneath and pulling out one book after the other, setting them in stacks and on a few small easels that had been hiding underneath a flap of cardboard. Finally, I remove my hat, straighten my hair and sit down, waiting. For hours I wait, seeing people browsing non-fiction for guides on weight loss, on interpreting their dreams, on the great conspiracies only the author and they knew the truth about, on making treehouses, on identifying different types of snakes though none were native to the area, on raising a child as a single parent, on starting their own business. I wait and wait, watching, smiling lightly, detached, seeing stories pass me by, making notes, but in large asking myself one question: Why? Why here? Whatever possessed me to ever come back to this town, to this place? I knew even as a child that I saw few other children enjoying books the way that I did. I hear a sharp crack behind me and look out at the sky, lightning in the distance, but rain starting to drizzle, then pour, then drench, then flood the earth as if my angst had somehow moved the heavens itself into joining in my foul mood. I sigh, again, running my hands against my temples, waiting.

What seemed like an eternity, but was closer to an hour, I sat alone, watching, when a few children walked over toward my table. I blinked, not expecting any turnout despite my friend's pleading earlier in the year, and open my mouth to greet them, only to shut it again. Cell phones and portable consoles, mp3 players and tablets. All blinking in one corner or another, each child holding an ac/dc adapter in their other hand, passing me and continuing to the bench where outlets are spaced every few feet. I grit my teeth, eying them slowly as they plug in and tune-out, focused solely on their devices, then shrug. I too enjoyed and still enjoy such things, though I rarely if ever used them in a library of all places when I was their age. Of course, at their age I only had one portable gaming console and only two games for it, but still I was more enraptured by the worlds in the words around me than those on a three-inch screen. I drum my fingers lightly on the table, watching, then finally return back to looking forward again, almost falling backward in surprise.

There, standing in front of me, head down-turned, looking at my table, is a boy no older than six, soaked from head to toe, though the carpet wouldn't truly suffer from what fell off him, despite the torrent outside. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, sniffling and scrunching his nose, reaching into his pocket for a wadded up piece of tissue paper that had somehow been insulated from the downpour. He blows his nose and I offer him the box the books had previously been in, raising a corner of my mouth lightly. He blinks and smiles lightly, throwing it into the box and looking at the books, a hand outstretch, but hesitant, pulling it back as he sees the drops coming off his body onto the edge of the table. I hum for a moment, reaching into my bag and pulling out a shirt I had been planning to wear tomorrow during my ride to the next stop. Nothing fancy, just a simple t-shirt. He blushes but nods, whispering his thanks and taking it, drying his face and hands and sleeves off as best as he could, picking up the book in front of him. His brow scrunched like his nose had, tongue licking his upper lip, then teeth nibbling his bottom one. He looks back to me, smiling, but his head cocked, starting to ask questions about some of the words which he doesn't yet have in his vocabulary.

As I start explaining, one of the children who had been listening to music before walks over to a nearby table and grabs a chair, sitting in it backwards, one earbud in, the other dangling, listening to a world of music, to a world of words. I keep talking to the boy from the rain and lightning flashes behind me, cracking not only from the thunder I expect, but the loud explosion of a transformer being struck echos in my ears for a moment the same instant as the lights and computers go out. One of the children whimpers behind me and I sigh for a moment, never truly understanding a fear of the dark, of the strange and unknown when it had fascinated me so much with stories of Shoggoth and The Morlocks and many countless other tales. Still, I hum, reaching into my bag and pull out my own cell phone, passing it to the shadowed child, telling them they can play with solitaire at least on it, if nothing else. Looking back to my bag I see the flashlight I always carry in case of emergencies, usually relying on my own night vision when it was dark, but it never hurt to be prepared just in case it was too dark for even that to work. Though I could see perfectly fine out the window and most of the room, there was one thing which I couldn't see, something perhaps that could keep their minds off of the storm and the darkness. I pull out the flashlight, using its beam to check on each of the children, then to bear on the pages the soaked boy had tried to read, its illumination reminding me of the shade and the quiet, the noise of nature drowning out the machine, bringing me back to the days I sat where they did. Perhaps not as scared, but looking for something more than the boredom of the current situation, of their current life. I smile, rubbing my fingers together and holding the flashlight level with where my eyes rested. And I read aloud,

"The Shallow Lagoon was not a place of prosperity for the Sliders or the Bushy-Tailed peoples, but it was a place where both could agree on one thing, that neither could survive long unless one either left by choice or by force. The waters which had long irrigated their crops was diminishing every year, while more and more young were born and as hungry as the last. Something had to happen to change their lot, and so they tried negotiation. They tried exploration to find new waters. They tried tunneling in hopes of finding an aquifer or underground river. They tried collecting dew and rain from the leaves of giant trees, but none seemed to hold enough to water even one garden, let alone two kingdoms. With no other resort left to their imagination they tried one last thing: War. The battles kept their numbers thinned and extended their time they had left before The Shallow Lagoon would be empty, but neither side was willing to give up, to surrender and try to find another way to survive, to keep their water from vanishing. No one even thought it possible that there might be a different path, a different destiny for the two kingdoms. None but Traxell Redleaf..."

Description
I walk along the same road as once I did, not long ago, though it feels a lifetime behind me. The yellow gravel stains the ground as the fresh rainwater slowly slides off its surfaces into puddles and ditches, ponds and swamp. The road, potholed, marked like the face of the moon is even more cracked than before, though some of the old scars, The Crestfallen Sigh, The Tearful Chalice, The Shallow Lagoon, some have been paved over with tar and pitch and paint and memories almost gone but still faintly whispering. The squirrels and turtles that failed to cross the road, both victims in their mutual hatred and bloody warfare in my youth, now merely the decaying remnants of the proof of mankind's ingenuity, flattened not by small boulders and fallen gates, but by mere rubber and aluminum. The air is still, silent but for the distant roaring of these mechanical monsters that we have tamed, the fauna too afraid to even call for help retaliating against their larger foe. A rabbit passes onto the road and spies me, leaping immediately to bound across the asphalt and hurry off before I might even consider to give it chase, rushing for the brambles and low-lying branches in case I was swifter than others of my species. I watch it go, staring in silence for a moment, then shift my bag, continuing on toward my destination, eying the skies warily as gray clouds roll on the edge of the horizon.

The library, where the thirst for stories that my parents and godparents had instilled in my young mind could be sated, briefly at least. Invited by an old friend, I acquiesced to returning to the town where I grew up and grew out of. A small stop on my book tour, just a table where I would be signing and talking to the patrons. I see the lines of paint in the parking lot, faded and repainted, covered in tar and painted again, the curb revealing what I already knew as a child, that it was only ever patched up, never healed fully, never whole for long. The library's facade has changed since last I was here, but still I see the trees I sat under, waiting for my ride when my family had plans I had no say in deciding, staying in that quiet shade, hoping to meld into the background like I had into the books. The air inside is cooler than the humidity outside, not quite the stale musty scent of older libraries I have come to visit later in life, but still not as sterile as some of the newer ones as well. There is the faint tapping of keys as adults use the terminals to search for work, where teenagers message their friends and catch up on gossip, and children squirm and make faces as they try desperately to concentrate on the game they are playing. True, even I had been doing some of those things when I left this town, but I remember days when all I would do was look up books by authors I had read and put in hold requests for more of their work, or followed the fractured, tangential and non-sequitur trails from their work to others that might interest me.

I saw the bench above the heating vent I used to rest upon in winter, flipping through Gary Paulsen and eying the designs Jack Frost made on the window, hoping that I got a new video game or Transformer for Christmas, which I tended to get from my parents and aunts and uncles, receiving typically more clothing from my godparents, though the bike one year, a sled another, both had kept my marvelously entertained in the seasons and years I used them. Still, the best gifts I had been given perhaps was not the toys or clothes or vehicles prepped for the adrenaline a young boy, even one as introverted as I, might desire or need. They were the days I was permitted to find books for myself, to collect them like others might frogs and crickets, their songs of battle and triumph and tragedy singing louder in my mind than any of the mundane creatures surrounding the building as it came close to closing time. The books of rockets and starships, spies and thieves, vagabonds and villains, heroes and hope. Yes, the comics as well, which I still relish with delight, though my tastes have mostly matured. And there was the window itself, covered in handprints at the bottom, and spiderwebs at the top.

These were not the spiderwebs weaved by Shelob and Anazi and Arachnae, but mere shadows of their poison slathered mandibles and fangs, these webs barely large enough to catch the flies buzzing round the restroom, let alone the fierce dragonflies on which nations of little fey had rode in exploration. And here sat the table and chair and sign, my stage, for whatever it was worth. Most likely only a roll of quarters with change returned, plus the cost of the books sitting not on display but on a box set to the side, the uppermost tattered and dogeared. I sigh, pushing it underneath and pulling out one book after the other, setting them in stacks and on a few small easels that had been hiding underneath a flap of cardboard. Finally, I remove my hat, straighten my hair and sit down, waiting. For hours I wait, seeing people browsing non-fiction for guides on weight loss, on interpreting their dreams, on the great conspiracies only the author and they knew the truth about, on making treehouses, on identifying different types of snakes though none were native to the area, on raising a child as a single parent, on starting their own business. I wait and wait, watching, smiling lightly, detached, seeing stories pass me by, making notes, but in large asking myself one question: Why? Why here? Whatever possessed me to ever come back to this town, to this place? I knew even as a child that I saw few other children enjoying books the way that I did. I hear a sharp crack behind me and look out at the sky, lightning in the distance, but rain starting to drizzle, then pour, then drench, then flood the earth as if my angst had somehow moved the heavens itself into joining in my foul mood. I sigh, again, running my hands against my temples, waiting.

What seemed like an eternity, but was closer to an hour, I sat alone, watching, when a few children walked over toward my table. I blinked, not expecting any turnout despite my friend's pleading earlier in the year, and open my mouth to greet them, only to shut it again. Cell phones and portable consoles, mp3 players and tablets. All blinking in one corner or another, each child holding an ac/dc adapter in their other hand, passing me and continuing to the bench where outlets are spaced every few feet. I grit my teeth, eying them slowly as they plug in and tune-out, focused solely on their devices, then shrug. I too enjoyed and still enjoy such things, though I rarely if ever used them in a library of all places when I was their age. Of course, at their age I only had one portable gaming console and only two games for it, but still I was more enraptured by the worlds in the words around me than those on a three-inch screen. I drum my fingers lightly on the table, watching, then finally return back to looking forward again, almost falling backward in surprise.

There, standing in front of me, head down-turned, looking at my table, is a boy no older than six, soaked from head to toe, though the carpet wouldn't truly suffer from what fell off him, despite the torrent outside. He wiped his nose with his sleeve, sniffling and scrunching his nose, reaching into his pocket for a wadded up piece of tissue paper that had somehow been insulated from the downpour. He blows his nose and I offer him the box the books had previously been in, raising a corner of my mouth lightly. He blinks and smiles lightly, throwing it into the box and looking at the books, a hand outstretch, but hesitant, pulling it back as he sees the drops coming off his body onto the edge of the table. I hum for a moment, reaching into my bag and pulling out a shirt I had been planning to wear tomorrow during my ride to the next stop. Nothing fancy, just a simple t-shirt. He blushes but nods, whispering his thanks and taking it, drying his face and hands and sleeves off as best as he could, picking up the book in front of him. His brow scrunched like his nose had, tongue licking his upper lip, then teeth nibbling his bottom one. He looks back to me, smiling, but his head cocked, starting to ask questions about some of the words which he doesn't yet have in his vocabulary.

As I start explaining, one of the children who had been listening to music before walks over to a nearby table and grabs a chair, sitting in it backwards, one earbud in, the other dangling, listening to a world of music, to a world of words. I keep talking to the boy from the rain and lightning flashes behind me, cracking not only from the thunder I expect, but the loud explosion of a transformer being struck echos in my ears for a moment the same instant as the lights and computers go out. One of the children whimpers behind me and I sigh for a moment, never truly understanding a fear of the dark, of the strange and unknown when it had fascinated me so much with stories of Shoggoth and The Morlocks and many countless other tales. Still, I hum, reaching into my bag and pull out my own cell phone, passing it to the shadowed child, telling them they can play with solitaire at least on it, if nothing else. Looking back to my bag I see the flashlight I always carry in case of emergencies, usually relying on my own night vision when it was dark, but it never hurt to be prepared just in case it was too dark for even that to work. Though I could see perfectly fine out the window and most of the room, there was one thing which I couldn't see, something perhaps that could keep their minds off of the storm and the darkness. I pull out the flashlight, using its beam to check on each of the children, then to bear on the pages the soaked boy had tried to read, its illumination reminding me of the shade and the quiet, the noise of nature drowning out the machine, bringing me back to the days I sat where they did. Perhaps not as scared, but looking for something more than the boredom of the current situation, of their current life. I smile, rubbing my fingers together and holding the flashlight level with where my eyes rested. And I read aloud,

"The Shallow Lagoon was not a place of prosperity for the Sliders or the Bushy-Tailed peoples, but it was a place where both could agree on one thing, that neither could survive long unless one either left by choice or by force. The waters which had long irrigated their crops was diminishing every year, while more and more young were born and as hungry as the last. Something had to happen to change their lot, and so they tried negotiation. They tried exploration to find new waters. They tried tunneling in hopes of finding an aquifer or underground river. They tried collecting dew and rain from the leaves of giant trees, but none seemed to hold enough to water even one garden, let alone two kingdoms. With no other resort left to their imagination they tried one last thing: War. The battles kept their numbers thinned and extended their time they had left before The Shallow Lagoon would be empty, but neither side was willing to give up, to surrender and try to find another way to survive, to keep their water from vanishing. No one even thought it possible that there might be a different path, a different destiny for the two kingdoms. None but Traxell Redleaf..."