Living In Alexandria

This was Heaven. I gave a low sigh and closed the book carefully,
running my finger along the embossed spine, feeling the lettering as
though it was Braille. "A Study In Scarlet" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
It was a first edition, but, then again, they were all first editions
in here.

I stared at the stacks of literature piled neatly upon the green
leather of the oaken, roll-top desk. I was on a mystery kick at the
moment, having already devoured the complete works of Agatha Christie,
Patricia Cornwell and PD James, among others.

But then what ? I gazed up at the library's domed roof arching high,
high above the preternatural silence of the Reading Room, rainbowed
sunbeams shafting in through the stained-glass skylight, the debris of
a billion ideas and inspirations floating, serenely illuminated by the
soft glow.

My neck ached as I gazed up at the multiple floors of galleries that
radiated from the silent hub of the central atrium on every level,
thinking about all those unseen others wandering between the endless
rows. Their low voices whispered with a suppressed sussuration as they
selected countless armfuls of books, gradually working their way
through the history of the human imagination: from Plato to Pratchett,
Edgar Rice Burroughs to William Burroughs, Homer to H Rider Haggard. It
was all in here.

I knew I still had a long way to go before I had achieved my goal, but
I also knew I had the time, the patience and definitely the
inclination. I wanted to read everything: Longfellow, Ludlum, Lawrence
(both DH and TE), Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, Graham Greene, Tom
Clancy, Arthur C Clarke, HG Wells, William Shakespeare, Harold Pinter.
I wished to absorb it all. What else was there ?

I was snapped out of my musings by the sudden presence of someone sat
opposite me. The young man in the black suit said a mere few words and
I was entrapped. I launched an endless salvo of questions at him,
recalling all of the other accounts I had heard. Did he recognise any
of the men he saw on the grassy knoll ? Did he think that the policeman
was authentic ? And just what had Oswald said to him that morning
?

I smiled to myself as he left, slightly more satisfied than I had been
recently. I still had so many questions about so many subjects for so
many people. But I was content in the fact that sooner or later,
everyone would have sat in that chair opposite and all my curiosities
would be answered. The truth was indeed out there. It was now only a
case of when I would get to hear it.

I had chatted with Sioux braves who had been at Little Big Horn. I had
debated dreams and their meanings with Sigmund Freud and Aborigine
medicine men. I had argued about quantum physics with Einstein and
Newton. I had asked Raymond Chandler where he got his hard-boiled
observations from and Da Vinci had whispered to me just who the Mona
Lisa was. Glenn Miller revealed what had really happened to him when he
disappeared and Chuck Yeager told me what it was like to break the
sound barrier for the first time.

I opened my eyes again and stretched, staring up once more at the
marble dome, agreeing that Sir Christopher Wren had made an excellent
job of the design. And then there was the immense, impressive mural
that covered the interior walls of the stadium-sized building.
Michelangelo had laboured hard over it, but he did, admittedly, have
some help from the likes of Constable, Whistler and Turner. It took
time to complete, but time was no longer an issue.

I slid the Sherlock Holmes mystery back across the desk and my hand
hovered over the next adventure of the amateur, Victorian sleuth. I
pouted, then stretched down, plucking the slim book from one of the
piles around my feet. "Alice Through The Looking Glass" by Lewis
Carroll. Murders, kidnappings and robberies could wait a while longer.
I did have plenty of time after all.

This was Heaven.