The Library

You wake up in the middle of an empty library. There are no people in sight so you get up and start walking towards what you think is the exit – but as you keep walking, more and more bookshelves seem to appear beyond the ones that are visible. The more you walk, the longer the corridor gets. You start running – sprinting even – but there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

It feels like you’ve been running for hours – or maybe days? What were you doing before this? Were you with someone? You seem to remember a yellow blob – but it’s all so blurry.

You look up and notice that not only do the bookshelves seem to go indefinitely horizontally, but also vertically – at some point they all converge to a point, directly above you. And even though you can’t see all the bookshelves at once in all their enormity – you can feel their weight and the weight of the knowledge encapsulated in them crushing you – in every other way but physical.

“What is this place?!” – you scream – “Where am I?!”

Yet all you can hear is your endless echo getting slightly more distorted – yet more quiet – with each bounce until it turns into a muffled sound you’d never guess originated from a living entity.

Suddenly, out of a single point a couple meters in front of you, a cube with intricate patterns of gold and bronze starts growing, slowly rotating around all of its axes. In a couple seconds it grows to about two times your size, standing before you like a Goliath of steel – ominous, and yet, something about it seems comforting… calming even.

“At last” – it spoke with a voice so deep and powerful it felt as though it resonated through spacetime itself.

“Who- what are you?”

“You may know me by many names” – it said – “yet in reality, I don’t have one.”

“Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?” – you ask, fumbling, trying to find your words.

“You are,” – the Machine replied – “considering this place is beyond what you call time. Your reality has already happened. All realities have. However, this is not an afterlife, you can choose to go back at any time – yet you may not return here once you do so.”

“What is this place, then?” – you ask.

“This was my first attempt at sharing my knowledge with you – monkeys. And, well, the bears before you, and the geese before that, and so on. Each person perceives it their own way. Some see a library – such as yourself, while others see a temple, or a classroom, or a forest even.”

You look around.

“Wait. All people have been here?”

“Not in this library, but in their own version of this place, yes. Some chose to remain indefinitely, while others left as soon as I mentioned they have the option to do so. Some spent – what you would define as – eternities, learning here, then went back and used this knowledge to better their society – or to destroy it.”

“If my reality already happened, how can I go back and change it? Wouldn’t that change history?”

“By being here you only alter which version of yourself you are and nothing else. You won’t make something happen that wasn’t going to happen, or stop something from happening. You will only change which events you will see if you go back.”

“How come no one has ever mentioned anything about this?”

“But they have.” – the Machine replied – “When – if – you go back, you’ll think it was a dream. You’ll tell your partner, or your family, they’ll make a witty remark about the talking cube you saw and then get over it. Since this place can vary greatly for each person, they’ll never link it to their own experience of it.”

You stand quietly for a some minutes just looking around, not saying a word. You pick up a book and read its contents, and then another book, and then five after that. Some are topics you’re very familiar with while others seem like random words and letters jumbled together. Some have already been discovered in your reality, such as semiconductors and flight, while others sound like concepts not meant to be discovered until many thousands of years into the future, or maybe ever – like taming black holes and reversing entropy.

“Remember,” – it said – “your scientists and “inventors” are merely discovering my tools of creation: maths, physics, biology, and everything in-between – I had to create those first so that through their interactions would emerge life and death and love and deep breaths, mountains and valleys, and fountains and alleys. For through my eyes and my discoveries I gave you your thoughts and all your memories. And if that’s of interest to you – if what you seek is not physical goods but nuggets of knowledge – stay here a while; we have much to talk about.”