After Hours
Saturday evening
What Yarrl had written about his work in the library stayed on my
mind all afternoon. I’d never before read anything about libraries
in an ancient codex, nor realized that present day library work
wasn’t actually that different. It’s still all about collecting
and making everything available to everyone, from children to
scholars. I think of it as a mission to advance and disseminate
knowledge, inspire and educate all humans. That’s a bit heavy, but
I believe when educators, librarians and others are able to work
together in harmony to provide materials that give people the
knowledge they need to have faith in themselves and their future, we
all benefit.
Now I’m on my way to the library on a Saturday night. I admit I'm
not the most adventuresome guy in this town, but right now I wanted
to take care of Alexi’s request for verifications that would help
her meet her writing deadline. In Alexandria she doesn’t have easy
access to a library or enough time to do her own research.
The article she’s ready to submit is about the Neoplatonic monks
who, influenced by Plato’s view of the Divine realm, believed that
physical resurrection of the body after death was not possible. This
belief disagreed with early orthodox Christian teaching about the
death and resurrection of Jesus. Good thing she’s the sort of
person who doesn't mind controversy. But she definitely likes to know
her sources and conclusions are right, so I sometimes help a little
with verification of facts, events, locations and dates.
She only asked that a few dates be verified in two independent
sources, with explanation of any variations. I should finish in a
couple of hours, easy. I enjoy research and had checked the Internet
last week, but this kind of research requires more reliability than a
basic search can provide. I stopped at the office to check our online
databases and online catalog for books and journals. These reliable
sources would provide more authoritative answers.
Hmmm. I wonder how Digital World plans to incorporate online
catalogs and databases in their future library services?
With a list of several sources, I headed for the stacks. This
library has more than a million volumes on eight floors, so it
usually takes a little time to find things. The Library of Congress
class B section for Philosophy, Psychology and Religion is so huge
it's split between the second and third levels. That’s a minor
inconvenience when it’s dark and the library is closed. I turn
lights on and off as I go from floor to floor. A flashlight would
bring campus security, which would slow me down.
There are no night lights in the stacks, it’s inky dark and so
quiet it can make me shiver. Even the slightest noise from the
heating system will make me jump. I don’t enjoy this, but never
have time during the day for extracurricular work.
I've read about how our minds have difficulty coping with sensory
deprivation and after a short time will begin to hallucinate as
compensation. Don't much care for that idea, so tend to move fast
when I’m here after hours.
On top of that, someone who’s run out of luck might go unnoticed
during our routine procedure to close. That's the way it is in these
large university libraries. I don't really mind, but I'd rather not
meet up with someone in the dark. So I always make noise and hope the
lights going on and off will be warning enough for anyone to move or
hide.
I stayed still, I didn’t want to be noticed. In the next instant a
young man stood directly in front of me at the end of my row. He
didn’t look quite right, more like someone from another time. He
was blond, wearing a kind of tunic that appeared to be ancient Greek
or Roman. It was short, just above his knees, linen with a purple
key-design at the hem. On his feet were dark leather sandals with
wide straps. But even stranger than his clothes was the short sword
held in front of his chest, the blade upward in front of his face. It
looked like a Roman gladius.
I gasped as the edges of the sword softened, melted, and turned into
a Christian cross. It was just like those two windows yesterday. For
a moment I couldn’t move, I just stared. Then he was enveloped by a
bright light and only the cross remained, hanging in mid-air.
Slowly the cross and the light faded and became a dim interior scene
where men in tunics were fighting each other amid bodies piled on a
blood-stained floor. The walls looked like ancient book stacks filled
with scrolls and codices. Curses and screams made it unbearable.
After a few seconds my eyes dropped to a sword stuck in the torso of
a fallen body. That sword morphed into a cross. I was mesmerized,
paralyzed.
Then, as if a light switch had been turned off, the scene was gone
and I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of grief and
unbelief. I trembled and twitched. As the scene went through my mind,
over and over, it still seemed real. I couldn’t move, afraid to
look around for fear I’d see more of what I didn’t want to see.
I don’t know how long it was till I could catch my breath. I
finally stood up and after a while regained some composure as my
breathing returned to normal. Desperate to feel like the world was
back in order; I walked down the aisle, one deliberate step after
another and turned out the lights; then down the stairs and into to
my office where I sat down at my desk and thought about what had just
happened. For a moment I wondered if I should call the campus police
and ask them to check out the building. But if they found nothing,
they’d think I was off-kilter or worse. I knew I couldn’t explain
to them what I’d seen. It was too far-fetched to share with anyone.
The only thing to do was go home. My original mission forgotten, I
left the one book I’d found on my desk, locked the office and went
to my car. My mind, not yet calm, still questioned what had just
happened. On the drive home through dark and empty side streets, I
asked myself, what did that have to do with those crosses in the
windows?
I tried to rationalize what I’d seen as hallucinations brought on
by overwork. Maybe I was just nervous in the dark and my mind had
looked for distraction in a too quiet environment, or maybe it had
something to do with this research for Alexi about religious history.
Because nothing like that had ever happened to me before, I thought
it had to be nothing. I felt calmer as I told myself that those kinds
of things just don't happen to regular, stable, average people in
this day and age. So with no way to know what those reflections in
the windows and tonight’s big scare were about, I could only think
it must have all been my own imagination.
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