6

He has always had this library in his mind, so long as he can remember. He has used it as a haven within his dreams, and he has learned how to transport himself to it when he is awake and in need of calm. He does not always direct himself, consciously, to go to the library. Some times, such as now, his unconscious mind has placed it before him. He knows -- he has faith -- that within the walls of the library as much as within the vast array of its books there is solace for any trouble and an answer (or answers) for any question. He walks over to a nearby shelf -- a shelf that reaches to the height of the ceiling, barely within his sight -- and draws out a volume. He opens it and there before him, on the spread of the volume's pages, is the strange formation of moving/unmoving shapes he had seen just before his capture. He looks at the thing. If he looks at it in a certain way, the shapes, though separate and distinct, form a head. Eyes of a sort. And the eyes look up at him from the pages. Perhaps in recognition.