The Street of Books

There are many streets in the City of Night.

Some straight as arrows flight on a still day.

Others curve serpentine upon themselves,

celtic knotting such a twisted topology

that he can never be certain he has again

returned to the place where he began.

Some barely shoulder wide,

even sideways turning.

Others great avenues,

broad and endless,

whereon all the armies that ever were

might pass on revue,

eternally
on their way,

unquestioning,

to whatever doom awaits them.

There are roads which climb hills

Escher like, that have no summit.

Endless they spiral,

with no beginning

and no end.

He has walked them slowly

many nights, until dawn waking

set him free,

back to the daylit world

of beginnings,

and endings.

There are the avenues

of once great houses,

Victorian, Edwardian. Elaborate.

Gaudy painted ladies,

shingled walls,

and slated roofs

now fallen into disarray.

Age stained, mildew gray.

Tall vacant windows, rotted curtains,

face empty streets, where no one walks,

save him.

Of some streets,
he seems to remember,

ghosts of trees.
Stark bare branched

unleafed, fingers dead reach upward,

deep rooted in soil which has never

known life.

Nor sun.

Nor rain.

Unbarked like the failing elms

he knew as a child

walking the streets
of the waking world,

before some strange disease

had girdled them unseen,

left them standing

to slowly die.

There are no living colors there.

It is a place of brown and grey,

faded red ancient brick,

Dull yellow, grey rose.

Colors of things

left too long in a sun

that has never shone.

the faded, grayed, unliving colors,

of stillness, of silence, of waiting, of death.

Then one night he awoke

to find himself standing,

upon

The Street of Books.

It is wide,

The Street of Books.

running die straight

between tall embankments

of dark green grass rising.

from the granite curbed street.

To each house

a granite stair

iron railed,

flights upward

to a great, dark, six panel door.

Iron hinged and iron latched.

which stands closed

in the center

of the heavy buildings.

some of stone.

some of brick.

The Street of Books

is lit in amber,

which casts no shadow,

and it has no sky.

He remembers his first time

there he found himself

standing centered in the street

where he had never

been before.

to either side buildings

that were not houses

and of which no two

were alike.

except in two details -

a great, dark, six panel door,

center.

flanked each side,

by tall windows,

of crystal glass.

Perfect.

Flawless.

Impervious.

Unbreakable.

Some two stories.

Some three.

Climbing

the broad granite steps

upward

a much greater distance

than it seemed

from the street

he found at the top

a pavement of slabbed

polished

dark strange stone

linking the stairs

which lead to the doors

iron hinged and latched

six panel doors

of wood

dark as mahogany

doors which are locked

like so many things in the City of Night.

doors for which he has

no key.

So he looked into the window

and saw there

books.

Floor to ceiling,

shelves and shelves,

of books.

Octavo -

Quarto -

Folio -

bound in leather

bound in parchment

bound in cloth

gilded

in a rainbow of colors

stretching away from the windows

as far as he could see.

He went again to the door

locked

he walked to the next building

to look through the windows

to see the same.

and he knew

that in there

was the thing he needed

in one of those books

he would find the key

he began to run

door to door

locked -

locked -

locked.

Screaming frustration

he would have thrown

a rock through a window

but there were no rocks there.

and he would discover

later

that the glass would not break

no matter what force

was brought to bear.

But there answer is in there

he knows it.

If only he can find the key.