Chapter Twenty-One

No, I haven't forgotten about Lindsay, rookie member of the Literature Police, working as a night guard in a literary factory resembling a prison complex. (See Chapter Five and Chapter Seven.)

She's been unable to re-enter the Forbidden Room due to a sudden rush of appearances of The Man in the Black Hat. Something important is happening. The conflict within literature between mandarins and rebels is reaching a climax.

Late at night The Man in the Black Hat sits in his high-up office overlooking the factory. Never does the man sleep. The rookie sees his wide-brimmed hat with its dark veil moving about, then stopping. She imagines at those moments that he looks directly at her. She shudders.

One night the office is dark. He's gone. Her opportunity has arrived.

She rushes through the guard stations, heart beating frantically. The green door awaits. Heavy green door. Mysterious green steel door, full of portent.

She's flung the door open and rushes down the corridor. A utility closet; simple closet, humble and unremarkable closet, seemingly, but the corridor stretches further, deeper, until she feels that it's burrowed far into the earth, or into another world.

Ahead: an orange glow. Her pace slows. Glowing; throbbing. Beams of light, of celebration, filling the green-painted stone block walls with arrays of light. Why here? Oh, why here in this damp surreal dungeon, like a prisoner never to be released?

At the end of the corridor, in the glow of light, placed against a back wall is a book. Only a book. That's all. That's everything. The beginning and end of human knowledge. The signal achievement of humanity.

She's unable to read the title. Something tells her it's the most fabulous book ever created; the greatest work; a story and a symphony; a work of poetry, beauty, history, and meaning. She tries to reach the book, to touch it. A frustrating unseen barrier keeps her away. Her time's up, she knows. It's past. With stampeding footsteps of disappointment and disbelief she turns and runs back the way she came.