Understanding

I told yesterday that I was putting off a topic until the morrow. Well the morrow it is and I am here to share that topic with you. Actually, it is less of a topic and more of a story. When I say story, I don’t mean some relation of events that happened to me, I mean story in its simplest terms. A story, which by the by, I happened to write.

I wrote this story some time ago, but spent much of an hour yesterday revising, rewriting, editing and creating paragraph breaks in this story. It is probably my second favorite short story I have written. Perhaps someday I will share my favorite, though it is much longer, pushing eight typed pages.

Of course, it now comes to my mind that I have previously shared a link to this story. However, given the edits I have made, which I esteem much to its improvement, I will share it again, this time directly in my blog. So grab yourself a warm cup of cocoa and settle down beside the fire. With out further ado, I give you . . .

Understanding

   It was a hard concept to grasp when I was a child. My father often told me the stories, how they had all gone mad. I could hardly imagine a society so complex, so advanced. As a child, I was amazed my father could control fire. The thought of houses reaching the sky and humans made of metal was completely dizzying. But now I can see it was true. The entire land is littered with humongous heaps of twisted metal and stone. A few of these piles still rise up into the sky, like hulking, hollow trees. Buildings, the word races through my head, and streets. I had seen a few pictures and heard many stories since my youth. I can still remember my favorite picture. It was a towering building, hovering above all the others. The Sears Tower, I believe it was called. How many times had I climbed the trees and yelled down to my father, "Look daddy, I'm on top of the Sears Tower." But even a child's imagination fell short when compared to the monsters that lay in ruin before me.

   As I walk among the rubble, I try to imagine how amazing and advanced this society must have been. Almost perfect. I shudder. Almost perfect, now reduced to ashes. How could a society create so much, and then completely destroy itself? It scares me so much I almost run back to the safety of my village. But curiosity still has me firmly in its grip.

   Ahead, I see a small building, almost untouched by the devastation around it. While broken windows and crumbled stones litter the walls, it still stands sturdy, almost inviting. Over the broken street, I make my way toward the building. Nearer now, I can make out worn letters engraved above the doorway. LIB ARY. I read the inscription aloud, “Lib Ary.” What does it mean? I search my mind, trying to remember those words. My mind is still racing as I walk through the vacant doorway. A vast room rises up in front of me, much larger than I had expected to fit in the shell I had seen from outside. "Library!" I shout. My voice rushes through the long silent room, as if greeting every book on every shelf. The echo comes back, "Read me!" But even before the echo reaches my ears, I have a book in my hand. I pull it off the shelf, peering through the cloud fresh stirred dust. My excitement is unbearable. There are so few books for me to read back home. In fact, until my eyes gazed unbelieving into this room, I had seen less than twenty books in my life. But my elation quickly dies as the pages crumble in my hands. "No!" I throw the book aside and grab another. Hoping, I slowly open it. A few letters remain on the first page. " of two Cit by ar s D " Gently, I turn the page, dreaming of words unworn by the cruelty of time. Again my heart breaks as the page falls to pieces. I close the book and sadly set it back on the shelf.

   Off I wander, trying different shelves and different books. Tears come to my eyes as every one murders my hopes of finding just one to read. Too quickly, the shelves dwindle in numbers, and the once far wall moves ever closer. But even the hours spent searching seem only minutes. So many books destroyed in so little time. Finally it ends and the back wall looms in front of me. I turn around and look past the shelves and shelves of broken dreams. All this beauty and art having survived the fires of its creators, now destroyed by the ravages of time.

   But something new attracts my eye. Down the wall to my right, there is a flash of light, a reflection off something on the wall; it is a large window! I move to the window and look through it. It opens into a small room with a large table, littered with books. The walls around it are filled with books. I quickly open the adjacent door and almost run to the table. Hesitant, I reach for the nearest book, scared to find it as ruined as the rest. But there is a gleam of hope. These books are not covered with dust like the rest of the library. The whole room seems almost sterile. Daring to hope, I open the book. Words! Hundreds of words! The pages seem to turn themselves. I fly through the book, hardly stopping to read. I am in such awe of finding a whole book, let alone a whole room of them. With a childish glee, I dance from book to book, from the table to the wall and back again. My eyes dart through the books, seeing nothing but words. Right now I can care less what they say; all I care about is the existence of new found books.

   As I move from one wall to the next, my senses are abruptly brought to a stand still. Sitting in the far corner is a small child. Startled out of my giddy state, I drop the book in my left hand. The thud of the book hitting the floor reverberates through the tiny room, but the chid does not stir. I stare for a moment, unable to discern if it is a boy or a girl, if it is alive or . . . there is something different about it. Closer, I can see the face. The head is tilted forward, eyes open. Tattered patches of hair fall across the right side of the face, half hiding a puzzled expression. Something about the expression catches my attention. Although lifeless, there seems to be a sense of confusion burned into the face. Then something else. Between the patches of hair, there is a glimmer. Metal? It begins to sink in. This is one of the metal humans, a mechanical man. But how could something like this die?

   Moving still nearer, I notice a book in the mechanical man's hand. This book is not like the other books in the room. The others are well kept; this book shows wear surpassing even its unguessed years. I take the book from the man’s hand. Every page is worn and tattered, the corners are curled and torn, the words are faded beyond recognition; as though every page had been turned hundreds of thousands of times. Lying on the ground next to the mechanical man are a few pages ripped completely out of the book. I pick one up. It is in an even worse state than the others. It seems to have been mulled over in the mechanical man's hands millions of times. I pick up another discarded page. Small impressions litter its edges. I run my fingers along the pattern of dents, finding a match. The page had been held in such apparent frustration, the mechanical man’s fingers had left their marks on the page.

   There are a few more spread around the mechanical man, some in stacks, others crumpled up and thrown to the side. Looking back at the mechanical man, my eyes again focus on his face, his wrinkled brow, his half open mouth. It seems frozen in a moment of confusion, bewilderment and frustration. What was it that confused him so? I leaf through the pages, hoping for a clue to what was so hard for him to understand. What was so important for him to learn that he spent untold hours trying to comprehend it, even dying amidst his struggle? But the pages leave only empty clues. For hours I search through the book, hoping time would make the past clearer. But noting comes of it and I begin to share the mechanical man's frustration.

   As my eyes start to droop, I gathered up all the pages and close them into the book. Perhaps another day will shed some light on the book’s secrets. Taking one long glance at the mechanical man, I turn to am ready to leave. The thing that eluded him remains hidden from my eyes as well. I wish I could open the book and answer every single question he had. Even if he can't understand my anymore, I want the knowledge to ring through his once hearing ears. But there is nothing to tell. His quest for understanding had completely erased every trace of that which he strove to know. Saddened, I turn to leave, clasping the book in my hand. I walk out of the room, but pause; I am straddling the threshold of the tiny room, my free hand out, the other held back by some unseen will. I turn to look at the mechanical man one last time. My eyes are no longer drawn to his face. Instead, they come to rest on his empty hands. How could I so easily take away this thing that had so consumed him? The book grows heavy in my hand. I glance down at it, then back at him. I want so much to know what it had once contained, but something inside tells me I already know. It is something that all humans know, understand, feel, but would remain forever hidden from a mechanical man even though he sought it for all eternity. I walk across the room and place the book back in the mechanical man's hand. "I truly hope you find what you are looking for," I say, and walk out of the library.