English Literature

If you want to see the pyramids, then you should go to Egypt.  If you want to see a Classical temple, then you should go to Greece or Rome.  For mystical and fantastical creatures, you could go to Narnia with the Pevensie orphans or to Oz with Dorothy and Toto.  For vampires and werewolves, venture at your own risk to Forks with Edward, Jacob, and Bella.  However, if one would like to experience all of these people and places, along with many more, one only has to visit their neighborhood library.  The library is the place where a person can escape the monotony of everyday life and escape to another reality.  It is a magical place where one can experience the world and beyond, simply by picking up a book.

The library experience begins for me as soon as I step through the sliding glass doors of the entrance.  With the heat of the streaming midday sun on my back, I step into the doors and under the unnatural glare of the artificial lights overhead.  The lights are no match for the brilliance of the sun outside, but their garish illumination only adds to the otherworldly atmosphere.  Walking past the circulation desk, I glance at the librarian and she flashes me a brief, rehearsed smile I notice that her teeth are much too bright, almost glowing, under the garish lights.  I walk to the back of the library, where my favorite table awaits.  My eyes adjust to the lights as I get closer, and by the time I reach my table, I have become so accustomed to the lights that the unnatural beams they cast on the room are no different from the rays of the sun.

As I sit down at my table, I begin to notice the familiar smell of the library. It is actually a fusion of smells, one blending into the next to create that heady concoction that I love.  The most immediate smell is that of Murphys Oil Soap, and I can picture the librarians assistant leaning over the table to clean off the grime accumulated from a days worth of readers.  The smell of the soap is contrasted against the musky odor of the worn, shabby carpet underfoot that doesnt retain even a hint of its original bubblegum colored hue.  As I sink deeper into the comforting cushion of my chair, it hits me the smell that I walk six-and-a-half blocks for every Saturday afternoon.  It is the smell of old, wrinkled pages, of ragged bindings and faded yellow highlighting.  I inhale once, and pictures flash through my mind of all the worlds that I have visited sitting at this very table, in this very chair.  This is the smell of fantasies and freedom it is the librarys smell, and I revel in it.

Of course, the library wouldnt be the library without the books  rows upon rows of books that call out to me like an insistent lover.  The books are everywhere they are even more vital to this building than the walls themselves.  The exposed bindings show every color of the rainbow in every shade.  Like people, there are short books, tall books, skinny books, wide books.  Some are shiny and new, and some are old and dusty.  Some are heavy tomes, and others are light paperbacks.  I rise from my chair and peruse the shelves, sliding my fingers along the laminated white labels fiction, mystery, romance, fantasy.  When I take my fingers away, they are covered with the thick grey-brown dust that covers everything in the library that the assistant hasnt wiped clean with her Murphys oil.  I quickly find an author and select a favorite that Ive read countless times before.  Then I return to my table and immerse myself in the book, my book. The books are the library without them, this place would be just a void, empty building. In the library, hours pass in what seem like minutes.  Before I know it, it is nightfall.  The library is darker, even more mystical without the sun beaming through the windows.  The lights overhead are even more stark, and as I walk toward the librarian at the circulation desk, her smile is almost neon.  The solid oak desk that I place my book on is solid oak and so tall that it cuts the petite librarian off at the chest.  As I turn to leave the library, I see that the weathered carpet leading to the door is even more worn and faded than the rest.  The bright lights flicker off as the library prepares to say goodnight to the last few readers left.  Already, the musk of the soap and the carpet and the books is giving way to the crisp, clean air of the night.  I approach the pristine sliding glass doors at the exit and stop.  For a second, I let the sight, the smell, and the feel of the library wash over me.  Leaving the library is like a quick jolt that rocks a reader out of the fantasy and back into the reality of the outside world.

The library has its very own atmosphere that allows a person to escape to anyplace at all.  It is its own world that serves as a gateway to every other world imaginable.  One only has to step into the library to experience the magic that can only be evoked by the written word.