Dreaming World

by Benjamin Yang

It’s 8:40 and I’m on my way.  It’s cold and I rub my hands together, breathing into them to warm them up.  I start my car, backing down the driveway.  Zipping along the road I head toward the library.  The streets are almost empty of traffic as I go along; I see stores opening people busily working to get ready for a new day.  I pull into the library parking lot which is mostly empty except for those like me waiting for the beginning of a new day at the library.  Already I see people waiting in front of the doors, waiting for those doors to open.  It’s now 8:50.  We wait our cars still running, starving off the cold waiting, always waiting for those doors to open.  Its 8:55 I shut off the engine and get out of my car shivering a bit from the cold.  Others also get out of their cars, and in ones and twos we approach the door.  I find a place near the front and I look around.  I see: old men with canes accompanying old ladies with big bags; I see kids from K-12 chattering with each other; a mother waiting with fraying patience as her child whines, begs and pleads; I see people with book bags, briefcases, messenger bags, all waiting with varying degrees of expectation and patience.  All of us, waiting for those doors to open.  We watch as life stirs in the building.  A librarian walks up the stairs from the children’s section crosses our view than disappears through another door.  Impatience fills the air as the appointed time of opening approaches.  8:58 a different librarian walks up to the door holding the key to our release.  The key master, the gatekeeper, liberator of all our tension and this seemingly endless wait to get inside the library, the librarian approaches, key in hand, and slides the key into the lock.  With a near silent “click” the doors slide open slowly.  The release of expectation is palpable; the release the breaking of a dam.  We flood though the crack of the door, its widening maw sucking in more and more people as we all rush to do whatever we want to do.  Most of us move forward into the main part of the library, but some move down the stairs entering the children’s section.  The rest of us enter though another set of doors between electronic arches past the desk and into the towering shelves of books.  The flood of humanity parts into separate individual streams of people.  Some go to learn from others, others go to learn from books; some go to listen some came to see; and some came to dream.  I wander toward the rows of books that beckon to me, and I become lost in a labyrinth of words.  I grab interesting books and lodge myself against a pillar my back against sun warmed glass.  I read and lose myself in the worlds of Pierce, Weber, Dumas, Faulkner, Butcher, Andrews, and others of both the fantastic and realistic.  For hours I sit and live through the words of others dreaming and thinking.  I read and read and read until I yawn in exhaustion.  Tired, I gather up the books, putting some back for perusal at a later date, others I take with me to the checkout counter.  I pass though the same electronic arches tired but satisfied.  I walk out the door without looking back knowing that someday soon I’ll return to the worlds I have read and those that I have yet to read.