The Lake and the Library by S. M. Beiko

The Lake and the Library by S. M. Beiko

Author:S. M. Beiko [Beiko, S. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2013-05-22T14:00:00+00:00


It had only just begun, that much was true. I wanted to recapture that moment when we suddenly appeared on an ancient road in Greece, when the air itself tasted sweet and alive just by reading the words. The stories could clothe us and our moments, and we were in a mine of never-ending supply. With our hands serving as pickaxes and audacity powering us on, we went to work.

Li was in the middle of teaching the paper macaw — the one he’d spent the afternoon crafting — how to dance, while I delved into the important matter of finding us the worthiest books I could. I darted up and down the rolling ladders like a dutiful lemur, dumping piles at his feet while the rustling of parchment birds skipped behind me, clouds of them taking to the air as my piles grew and tipped over. I was treating this as very serious business, and Li could see that. He eventually left the parrot to its own devices so he could scamper after me, and he quickly turned book-finding into a competition. His pile grew to challenge mine, and we prepared to duel like the stakes were high and noon was higher.

I dove for my first selection, flipping through manically and smirking. He took on a gunslinger stance, waiting for me to start reading. “And the crewman knew the song well, and they sang: ‘Fifteen men on a dead-man’s chest . . .’”

The floor rumbled, but we were used to this now, the hardwood boards unfurling and peeling back to make room for waves and a ship’s deck. The prow burst through, figurehead first, and rose out of the water like it was midresurrection. We busted hard to starboard, and Li was suddenly my crutched Long John Silver, peg leg and all. He grabbed hold of the rigging and followed me to the railing as we gazed out over the sea.

I shook my head, trying to keep my sailor’s cap down tight as the salty wind made a reach for it. Absolutely every detail was vivid, everything around us taking on a sepia tone, like the pages themselves, but that just added to the atmosphere even more. “This is too much.”

The deck lurched and I lost the book to the open air and the parchment seagulls floating around us. The covers snapped shut as the book hit the water, and we both tumbled to the library floor when it came back into existence to meet us.

Li reached out and dusted me off, plucking a bit of seaweed from my hair that disappeared with a gentle pop when he shook it off.

“It’s like we’re really there, every time,” I trilled, slumping onto my back and staring at the peaks of the higher-than-high ceiling. I had challenged Li to see if it would be possible to make a paper sky for the paper birds, to make them feel more at home, more alive. Wrinkled parchment cirrus floated above our heads now, and had the sense to develop their own shapes and forms independent of our whims.



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