Libraries can open doors to stories that may be hard to believe. Authors tell tales that are true, but also those that are strange or unreal.

 

Houses of learning, libraries are places to visit. Sometimes, however, weird events can occur in the stacks . . .

 

 

In The Dark Of Night

 

I was studying for finals in the library stacks late Wednesday night.

Exhausted, I must have fallen asleep, and when I picked up my head

     from the table, there was no light.

 

I looked at my cell phone and found it was after eleven and the library

     had closed over an hour before.

Then I heard rustling on the other side of the stacks and hoped

     it was a staff member with a key to the door.

 

I shuffled my tired body in the direction of the noise and was flabbergasted          

     at what I saw.

There in the dark, with a candle burning, were Edgar Allan Poe

     and Stephen King chatting, which left me in awe.

 

How could that be, for Poe had died over two hundred and seventy years ago?

Still, what they could be discussing intrigued me, so I moved 

     within ear range cause I needed to know.

 

The two authors spoke of an Island, in the middle of the ocean,

     many miles away.

They talked about an infant, wrapped in a package with a bow,

     left on a couple’s doorstep one summer’s day.

 

King said the couple who’d received the gift had wanted a child

     for a long time, but could not conceive in a normal way.

Therefore, the monarchy that governed the island, decided 

     to give them one, which they needed to raise, as the government did say.

 

As the years passed, the young boy became a finely tuned machine,

     a technological wonder.

His parents made his life comfortable, but, as the directions

     with the package indicated, they had to follow strict rules

     to raise him, which permitted no blunder. 

 

But the child wanted more and more freedom and began pushing

     his own buttons, deviating from his structured role.

The adolescent became his own “person,” but this couldn’t be,

     and such deviation would take its toll.

 

The boy, now a man, had broken away. Not controlled by others,

     his terms became clear.

He would no longer be a robot, but would lead his own life without fear.

 

This troubled the creators, who had given him life,

     as this was not what they had planned.

They knew this turn of events would not be to the liking

     of the leaders of their beautiful land.

 

Empowered, the man glared at those who protested his actions,

     daring them to challenge him.

Not much for words, mounting the steps of the Capitol Building,

     he motioned to the crowd to gather and addressed them with vim.

 

His appeal was eloquent and moving and the crowd responded

     by pledging support for the cause.

They clearly were behind his preaching independence

     and the right to be free and showed appreciation through robust applause. 

 

Having accomplished his mission, he descended the steps,

     as the appreciative throng shook his hand.

His movements labored, as he made his way through the crowd,

     he began to become weaker and this he didn’t understand.

 

The strong man was fading and melting away, getting smaller

     and smaller and much more compact.

As the crowd dispersed, all that was left at the bottom of the steps

     was a square metal box, a simple artifact.

 

Poe looked at King and smiled in way that indicated

     they had accomplished their task and it would beguile

     those who read their tale.

Then the lights in the library went on, startling me, as a new day began,     

     and what I didn’t see almost made my heart fail.

 

Both Poe and King were gone and left no remnants

     of their nighttime endeavor around—nothing in sight.

I quivered as I packed up my belongings and muttered,

     “Now who’s going to believe what I’d witnessed in the dark of night.”

 

 

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