(The story below is a re-working of a tale I posted some time ago)
Allistair owned a travelling library and today it was looking neglected.
Allistair had done a brilliant job over the years transporting his library from one location to another.
He had planted a tree in the centre to give it that bit of charm he thought a library should have.
In the town of Booksta Allistair suffered a toothache and had to take himself to the dentist.
He was forced to leave the library unattended, and Allistair knew it was not a good idea.
The library had a history. It was not a good history, as history was not something most of the volumes embraced. Their self-centred nature led them to believe they deserved to be read above all others.
The Romantics, looked down on anything, not to a standard they approved of, which was most modern literature apart from a few authors like Peter Carey and Margaret Attwood whom they thought intellectually their equal.
The modernists would in turn yawn and say the Romantics were proficient at two things, producing unenviable volumes of verbal guff and generating the desire to sleep half way through any chosen sentence.
The Jane Austen’s, for example, took exception to the JK Rowling’s’. They had been exchanging snide comments ever since Allistair placed the entire Harry Potter series on the shelves opposite. To exacerbate matters Harry Potter was in demand.
The Austen’s had always been a feisty lot. In a fit of anger, they propelled a Keats Anthology into Volume Two of the Potter series, The Chamber of Secrets.
The other volumes took umbrage and faced off to the Austen’s. Another blow from Dante’s Inferno signalled their intent, striking a serious blow to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This was a mistake as from the volume in question a bolt of lightning was launched across the space striking a dozing copy of Sense and Sensibility, already a super sensitive introverted text, and leaving a very untoward scar across its spine. In all righteousness, the Austen’s by now had their gander up well and truly, and the library descended into a free for all.
Insults and accusations rained down from all levels as random volumes fell upon one another.
Through it, all the tree stood stoically as various texts bounced off it. It saw red though when a copy of CM Bark’s, ‘The Bark Maketh the Tree’, collided with him. That the tree thought was sacrilege.
While chaos reigned within the library, the tree reflected on its purpose in life. In the beginning, it was a quaint novelty. But as the tree had grown, it became more and more self-conscious. There had been suggestions Allistair might remove the tree permanently, and so the tree spent recent times trying its best to look inconspicuous.
The tree’s only friend, was an old globe who during the ruckus sought shelter beneath the Memoirs, who ever hopeful of being selected oozed an air of neediness to anyone passing by.
Allistair returned, his mouth numb but much better. He was saddened to see the mess within his Library. He admonished the Romantics reminding them that their survival depended upon getting along with everyone else.
From inside his coat pocket, he took out a green wand and making sure no one was looking he waved it and immediately order was restored.
He then tapped the truck of the tree, and it shrunk to a more manageable size.
‘There,’ he thought, ‘all is as it should be.’
And smiling at the Harry Potter’s said, “And you thought Dumbledore was a great wizard?”
Written for: https://rachelpoli.com/2018/06/08/time-to-write-set-the-scene-9-creative-writing-prompt/
Morpethroad 