Quoth the Crow by David Bischoff

Author:David Bischoff [Bischoff, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Fantástico
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 1998-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

fifteen

Mimes, in the form of God on high.

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Woe!

—Edgar A. Poe, “The Conqueror Worm”

THE REST WAS NOT SILENCE.

Professor William Blessing woke up.

The first thing he was aware of was muted light, coming through tinted windows. He looked up and realized that he was in a huge room below a rotunda. In the top of the rotunda, some kind of white bird was fluttering, trapped. As he focused, he could see it was a dove. A dove flying from perch to perch, looking for a way to escape.

He looked down.

He sat upon an old wooden chair, Underneath was a beautiful tile floor. Around him were lines of desks. Reading desks, with no occupants. Upon the circling shelves were books and magazines and newspapers.

A library, then.

He was in a beautiful old library.

It smelled of that delicious combination of worn leather and paper, of silence and concentration. Dust motes danced in a shaft of light, like unbound atoms intellectual, dancing in the halls of knowledge.

He was wearing a dark suit of Victorian cut. It was silken and comfortable. As he turned around, he saw, beside a large circulation desk, still untenanted, a drinking fountain. His mouth was dry, so he got up and got a drink. The water was cold and refreshing, but brackish.

When he arose from his drink, he turned and saw that there was a man behind the highly polished wood desk. He too wore a Victorian coat along with odd spectacles, mutton-chop side-burns, and a black bow about the neck, tied with a Byronic flair. He was an elderly man, but there was something familiar about the shape of the head, the stare of the eye.

“May I help you?” the librarian asked.

“I…don’t know why I’m here,” said Blessing.

“Surely you are here to use the library, sir,” said the man. “May I see your library card?”

“Of course.” Blessing checked his pockets, but found nothing in them. “I don’t seem to have one,” he said.

“Well, then!” said the man, still dark and ruminative. “Obviously you are here to obtain one. Allow me to help you. Step up to the desk, if you will.”

Blessing obeyed, still feeling confused and disoriented. The man in the dark suit and tie and domed forehead reached underneath the counter and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Your name, sir?” asked the librarian.

“William Clark Blessing.”

“Date of birth?”

“Uhm…December fifteenth, nineteen-fifty.”

“Date of death?”

Blessing blinked at the old librarian. “Excuse me…”

“I need the date you died, sir. If you’re going to check in or check out of the library, or even use it, I’ll have to have all the proper information.” The man looked faintly impatient and piqued. But there was something else in his eye: a kind of fury. A challenge.

“But I’m not dead! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No memory of death. Hmm. Not uncommon,” said the librarian. “Well, I suppose there might be something in the records that could help.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.