The Making of a Life

Chapter 1

I raise the teacup to my lips, barely feeling the hot liquid splash down my throat. The sun spilling in through the open window bathes the empty chair across from me in light. That chair is always empty, always covered in light, as if the sun is taunting me.

Why don’t you have a friend to sit here and have morning tea with you, Asa? Are you too engulfed in your silly little brain to socialize?

“Mind,” I correct the sun quietly. The woman at the table across the aisle flicks her eyes over to me, silently appraising my appearance and making (probably false, possibly true) judgments. She’ll see my dark, slightly unkempt hair and assume I’m a rebel teenager that has no ‘need’ for cleanliness. She’ll estimate my height and be two and a quarter inches off, but still think I’m much too short and thin for a boy of my age (she’ll be about two years off on that, too). Then, she’ll look at the half-empty cup of milky tea in front of me and wonder why I’m sitting alone, finally coming to the conclusion that I’ve been stood up for a summer breakfast date. How wrong she could be.

After about another ten minutes, the woman stands and grabs her purse. She pushes her chair in, and, on the way to the door of the café, sends another glance towards me. As she walks out of the café, she shakes her head lightly. She probably thinks I can’t see her—don’t notice her—but I do. I always do.

I finish my tea and toss a few crumpled bills onto the scratched, wooden table. All the waitresses at the café know me. They know (think) I ignore everyone. But I don’t. In fact, I probably pay more attention to this world than anyone else. I observe everything. I see everything. I need to see everything. I need to understand everything. I need to know why we live.

The street is just as bright as the chair across the table. The sun continues to mock me. The sun always mocks me. I envy the sun. The sun doesn’t have to live, but it gets to have fun at our expense. It seems unfair. It is unfair. Or, perhaps, it is fair and my judgment is clouded. I can’t afford for my judgment to be clouded; I must see clearly.

I have nowhere to go this ‘beautiful’ summer morning. No school to bore me, no more tea to fill me, and no friends to excite me. I pass my house (not quite a home) and stare at its dull beige siding. My mind’s eye flickers to the knife sitting on the covers of my made bed, waiting for me. I imagine the large topaz in its hilt. It’s a sun, too, mocking me. There are too many suns: the woman from the café, the hilt of my knife, the taillights of the bus. All of them, their only ambition is to ridicule me, make my head ache, break my circuits.

I pull my venomous glare from the window to my room and begin to run. I don’t know where I’m going, or why, but I’m getting away from that house and the rays from all the suns that scorch my skin. My legs and lungs burn as I sprint into the city, but I’m nowhere near stopping. Or, at least, until I see the library. I slow and wipe the sweat from my forehead with the long, loose sleeve of my shirt.

The library is my favorite place. It is the only place I know that is clothed in darkness, away from the sun. It is quiet and soothing to my constantly-aching head, but still filled with knowledge that I can only fantasize of possessing. Every time I crack an old book or smell the antiquity of the library’s dusty back shelves, I know (think) I’m one page closer to the truth.

I stop in the large, Romanesque arches at the front of the library and stare into its depths, closing my eyes and inhaling its scent. The sun beats down on my back, prodding me into the comforting building. I don’t try to fight it—I rarely do.

“Asa! Get out of the doorway!” a familiar woman screeches from the circulation desk. Ms. Tate is one person I like. She’s not particularly kind and she hates small talk, but something about her draws me in. She has brittle grey hair and beady black eyes now, but she once showed me a picture from when she was young and beautiful. I didn’t think she was beautiful in that photo, and I don’t think she’s beautiful now, but I won’t tell her that.

I do as I’m told and join her at the desk. She glares up at me from behind her half-moon spectacles. There’s a small, beaded chain keeping them around her neck. The chain has small stones of evenly spaced topaz, but they aren’t suns. They’re just pretty yellow rocks that twinkle in the soft light of the massive chandelier hanging above me. I like topaz when its shimmer isn't malevolent.

“What do you want, Asa?” she hisses, turning the page in her book. I cock my head a few degrees to the side and watch her slam the novel onto itself. “Goddamn, boy! Speak!” she howls, the veins in her forehead popping out slightly. She knows I won’t speak. I’ve only spoken to her once, when I got my library card. I was fourteen and new to Graham City, but already deep in my quest for answers.

Ms. Tate sighs and hands me the small skeleton key that belongs to the tall gates blocking the back shelves from the public. The Limited section. I love the Limited section; it smells wonderful and I’m the only one who goes there. All the very old books, the special books, are kept there. I feel like those books sometimes. Old—no, special.

I peruse the shelves, looking for a book I haven’t read. Finding one is harder than I remember, but soon, a red leather spine catches my eye. I don’t recall this book being here. I know the books in the Limited section by heart, and this book is new. Maybe not new in its life, but new to Graham Library’s. I slip it out of its tight confines and glance over the gold imprint on the cover.

The Art and Science of Us

My heart leaps (figuratively, of course) and my breathing hitches (literally) as I run my thumb over the leather. This leather is much different than that of my knife. This leather is stiff and untouched, bright in color, while my knife’s hilt is worn and faded, soft with years of my pondering. To the touch, my knife is much more pleasing, but to my eye (my mind's eye, at least), the glittering gold ink on this book is the most attractive thing I've held in a long time. It, like Ms. Tate’s eyeglass chain, is bright, but not sunny; warm, but not burning. If only all the suns I know were like this book—beautiful and balmy. But I know that won’t happen.

I tuck the treasure under my arm and walk out of the Limited section, locking the gate behind me. Finding my way to the desk on autopilot, I palm over the bright red leather cover and savor the feel of its pores, knowing well that it could be my imagination entirely. But I don’t care. When I reach the circulation desk, Ms. Tate has dozed off. I glance at the large, fanciful clock at the entrance of the library and nearly fall over. An hour in the Limited section always feels like a matter of moments. It always is.

I tap at the bronze bell sitting atop the desk and Ms. Tate’s beady eyes snap open. She glares at me, her glasses slipping further down her long nose.

“Asa! Don’t you know you’re not sup-” she says, trailing off as she noticed the book in my hands. “Ah. I see you’ve found our newest book. I thought you would.”

I nod, passing it over the desk to her, the skeleton key lightly sitting on it. She raises a wispy eyebrow and grasps at the key.

“You and I both know that Limited books don’t circulate,” she says, her tone oddly soft. I watch her without expression as she sighs and slides a card into the pocket pasted in the back of the book. “You don’t talk a lot, but I know you, Asa. I trust you. I also trust that when this book comes back, it will be in the exact same condition as it is now, got it?” she finishes with a hiss. I stare at her for a moment, not knowing what to do. People don’t trust me. I don’t trust people. I hardly trust myself. But something about Ms. Tate’s expression, firm, but caring, makes me nod. Her thin, red-painted lips crack into what one might consider a smile as she pushes the book towards me. I tuck it under my arm (it feels like it belongs there) and shoot a small, unsure grin towards her in thanks. Her arm reaches across the desk and pats my shoulder before pushing me towards the door with a grunt.

Even as I near the beaming sun, I feel great. I feel smart. I feel erudite. The sun is uncomfortable, but bearable. Walking home isn’t as bad when I know I’ve got a book holding many of the answers I’ve been searching for (I hope, I implore) under my arm.