ALL-CAPS

You have been driving for hours now, yet you are still somehow lost in the winding desert roads of Nevada. But hope seems to rise as you see a small structure in the distance, pulling to the side of the building, a sign in neon letters reads: “GALE’S LIBRARY”. The place looks rundown and water drips from the shutters even though it hasn’t rained for days.

You cautiously push open a large wooden door to find a candle lit hallway like entry filled with piles and piles of books, leaving barely enough room for standing. Each book is leather bound, and after flipping through a few, you realize each is handwritten in the same swooping cursive.

After wandering through stacks of books you discover a sharp faced young man sitting at a desk, face hardly illuminated by the candlelight. As you come closer, he looks up pupils fixating on you almost seeming to shrink as the light hit his eyes. You can’t help but tremble slightly as his lips split into an inhumanly wide grin. “Lost?… I know you are. Why not pick up a book while you wait?” The words itch at your mind as the strange man hands you a book bound with emerald green leather. Walking away, book in hand, you search for a place to sit as you read. That voice calls after you “don’t wander too far, it’s only far too easy to get trapped in your own escape.” His warning is nearly wasted on you as the only thought that courses through your head is how familiar that voice is.

As you crack the spine, you already feel calmer. As you read, it’s almost like the words stop being words, letters turn to images of the story that flood your mind. The first one that comes is of the protagonist, a young hero. Now you see him finally at the end of his journey, slaying the monsters that were scaring the towns people. You see him as he hurries back to the palace to win the hand of the fair princesses. But as he arrives weary from the long road, and quite homesick, he is seized by the guards and thrown into the dungeons to be executed. Now also thrown into the deepest misery, our hero found out from a dungeon guard that a powerful wizard had discovered that the “monsters” were people who had been cursed by a wicked witch. And now instead of being the hero, he was the murderer who had slaughtered many and almost married their princesses. Whose wedding to the wizard was to be the same day of his beheading. He sat there in front of hundreds that used to praise him now rejoice for his death. And with his last moments he proclaimed the fall of the empire and every shallow being that resided in it.

Tearing eyes away, words turned back to letters. You stare at the book wondering what made you ever think that muddy green had ever been emerald. Climbing to your feet, you wait for the tingling to go away, and you wander back to the front. Those narrow eyes fixate on you, “ you should go now. Before it’s too late.” he chuckles as he watches you hurry away, never saying a word. Back at the entry, you almost feel nervous to leave, you never even got direction. Pushing the wooden door open, you stop in your tracks. Bright Boston lights, flood your vision as you watch an officer, slip a ticket onto the windshield of your car. spinning to look back at the library you find it replaced with your very own apartment building. Starting to question your sanity you realize that you’re still holding that damned green book.

“ so much for the plane ride back”