Laura Whitcomb

“The library smells like old books — a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.”

“It was all real and blazing with detail. But I was shadow, light as mist, mute as the wallpaper.”

“He kissed me for a long moment, holding my shoulders, perhaps to keep me from pressing my whole body against his. Then he tried to lift my bag."My God," he said. "What happened?""I found out one may check out twenty books at a time from the school library.”

“As I look around the quiet room, I see a thousand leather covers like doorways into worlds unknown.”

“A sea of dreams trapped in a span of pressed pages”

“Books are boring," James said as he wrote."They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.”