The Library

                                                    

I had a knack for literature. Robinson Crusoe, Oliver Twist, The war of the worlds. Dickens, Lois Stevenson, Phillip K., J.R.R. Tolkien. I wasn’t a big fan of Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, I wasn’t like the rest.

It was my first day as a “monitoring guy”.

The most respected educational institute in Pakistan. A healthy salary, medical and transport perks.

I was satisfied.

My introduction to the office was pronto. The HR had to attend an emergency meeting. In front of the office, I stood, while the HR rumbled these words, from outside the room, holding the door.

“Mr. Ali, replaced with Mr. Nawaz. He will be monitoring the library”

She let go of the door and it was slammed shut, causing me to reflexively jerk (the wind was equally responsible as there were windows at the opposite end)

I was left alone with two people…strangers at the moment, but eventually good friends by the week’s end.

“Cubicle 3, three monitors, A1- first-floor cameras, A2- second-floor cameras, A3-basement, you see a blacked-out screen, call on 1201 and report it to them. I am Ahmad, and he is…”

“Faraz” The other person interrupted

It was a rather miniature room, there were three cubicles in parallel, the same in dimensions. At the opposite end was a window, covering from the base surface to the ceiling. Two tube lights diffracted their glamourous closet mix light rays in the entire room. Opposite of the cubicles was a desktop table. One table lamp, a few sorted papers, and a bugs’ bunny paperweight on top of them.

“You have experience with the Camson, right?”

It was computer software.

“6 months” I replied

I went to my cubicle and pulled out a book from my backpack. A novel.

“You won’t be monitoring much, you will be here, eating or drinking, there is almost no one there, and even if they do, no one comes for the books, so don’t pay too much attention, don’t let the screen damage your eyes, right?”

“My job is to monitor, not to analyze who is reading or who is not.”

Ahmad chuckles.

“You know, looking at that backpack of yours, full of books. I only said that because a monitoring guy with a salary of 40ks a month owns more books, than a typical student here in his entire four years.”

“But this is a university, they would surely be using the library, for research, for additional information…”

Ahmad looked at me, and the novel. His expression suddenly brightened up. He was about to pour an idea into me.

“Tell you what? It’s your first day, let’s have a small bet. If you find out even one of the copy-cats, reading a book, within (he looks at his gold hand watch) three hours, you can notify us, and we will make sure, to order you something nice, you can tell us then what you are craving for”

After a long pause, a long thought, I resisted, but finally agreed with the verdict “how hard is it to find

just…one…individual who reads at the library?”

I began to scrutinize the screen.

A portal to another dimension. An invention of mankind that can let you rewind the past, pause the past and the present. Three floors of endless racks of books. The basement starts with an A section and finishes with a Z section on the second floor, like a stack. First in, last out.

The first person that I saw through the camera was a sweeper who was mopping the parquet tiles. With a keen look and one tilted eyebrow, I began to go back and forth across the floors.

1st floor, click, 2nd floor, click, basement, click, 1st-floor click, medical section, click…Ohh there is a guy, but let’s zoom in on him.

 A laptop and a sheet of paper, duplicating the words ferociously from mere pixels onto the sheet. A copycat machine, a plagiarizer. The assignment must have been due this morning.

Click, click, click

Another one, two of them.

It was a couple, sitting in front of each other, laughing, gossiping. No books in sight. The librarian suddenly came and gave them a hand signal to be quiet. Shh!

Click, click. Oh here is one.

He was sleeping, poor guy, he must have been studying the whole night.

Clatter, clatter, clatter (I was using the keyboard now) Oh I found one.

Finally, something! He was holding a book.

“I think we have a winner!”

The two of them rushed to my cubicle.

“Aha, tough luck. That’s not a book.” Faraz said

“Of course, it’s a book, what do you mean?”

I zoomed in and it wasn’t a book but a photo album, the alumni photo album of the university.

“Weird”

Clatter, Clatter. The basement.

Four students, maybe they just arrived two minutes earlier. A game of pubg, mobile phones and hands-free. The basement was the computer section. A fiber connection, good speed, gaming.

Click, click, clatter, clatter….

With time, a handful of them came. Some for gaming, some for chit-chat, couples, copy-cat machines, and slaves (to their phones). Not a single one came for the books.

For two hours I sat, at the computer screen, clicking and clattering.

“How is it that absolutely no one, no one is interested in the books?” I spoke.

“The technology…the past batches, or rather I would say, the batches of the 80s, 90s,20s didn’t have internet, so they relied on books. That was the golden age. Afterward, YouTube came into popularity, and students began to rely on them. 2020 saw a rise in social media apps, and that was it. Facebook gave them artificial happiness, Instagram gave them pride, and Twitter made them Ignorant. Memes, gaming, faking depression, this is all that is happening inside that so-called virtual social world.

Ahmad said.

“No one is interested in books anymore; even I have seen people do a bachelor’s degree without reading a single book. They are heavily dependent on slides.”

He went back to doing his work.

I sat back and began reading my novel, inattentively because the library was a ghost town. All I saw there were the racks, and inside them, the books waited patiently, their quality fresh, their covers eclectic and intriguing. Poor books! All they want is to teach you wisdom and the ability to be curious, but I guess no one wants curiosity or wisdom from them in the digital age.