Written on Leaves
The sun gilded the roof of the library barn when Niles stepped into his glade, travel mug of coffee in one hand.
“Good morning,” he greeted the trees, a ritual he’d followed since the day he’d planted the birch and the spruce. He didn’t have to pass through the glade to open the library—didn’t have to leave the house at all—but since he’d brought the trees into the courtyard, Niles refused to ignore them.
Trees needed sun and sky, water, food, and each other, but Niles didn’t want them to miss the company of other trees or the wider world. He shared news, memories, and the small joys and annoyances that marked his days, spending as much time in his glade as he could.
A few moments with a coffee.
An afternoon with a book.
And when the weather was too perfect to be inside, he brought his work outside, too.
His trees, while confined to the courtyard, thrived and grew.
They gave him blossom in the spring, dappled green shade and the cooling rustle of leaves in the summer, and glorious colour in autumn.
In the winter they slept, but even then, Niles visited them daily.
He spoke to the dreaming trees, and having their company comforted him.
“I’m compiling the next iteration of the new app today,” he said, settling himself onto the bench between the ginkgo and the maple.
“While the program runs, I’ll come and sit with you out here.
” He gestured upwards. “The sky says it’s going to be a glorious autumn day and I’m enjoying your colours very much.
Do you wish you could change them faster and go to sleep?
Or do you enjoy these last days of warmth and sunshine? ”
A ripple of amusement washed over Niles, along with the brief sensation of stretching tall after being hunched over his desk for hours. The image was so vivid he straightened where he sat and only just remembered the mug in his hand before he raised his arms.
“A fine impression I’d give, opening the library wearing my morning coffee,” he chuckled.
There was little need to open the library, on time or not.
Book browsing seemed to have gone out of fashion.
His regular customers ordered their books online and he delivered them to their homes, collecting the read ones at the same time.
It made him more of a book depository than a library, yet he still opened the place because now and then someone wandered in.
They might have missed their bus and needed a warm, dry place to wait for the next one, or they just didn’t want to go home. Niles didn’t mind and didn’t ask. He welcomed and cherished each visitor, especially the very few who came to talk about books.
He finished his coffee and stood. “Time to open the library. I’ll be back later to tell you about all the exciting things happening in my life.”
His courtyard was sheltered from the wind, but a rustle of leaves answered him like an audible smile. And Niles looked up at his trees and smiled back.
Mornings in the library followed a pattern.
Niles made coffee, then gave the place a quick dusting.
He checked his library app for books ordered overnight and set them aside for his next book delivery round.
After that, the day was his and he settled in the corner near the coffee machine to work on his latest programming project.
Since people weren’t coming to the library to discuss books face-to-face, he was building an app to let them do so from the comfort of their homes and phones.
Librarians had long requested such an app, so Niles built them what they wanted, never mind that it chafed him.
He wanted technology to remove the chores, so people could spend more time together.
But the opposite was happening. Apps took the place of human interaction, sapped joy and creativity, and left the chores for people to do.
It made no sense to him.
Maybe getting people talking, even if it was anonymously on an app, was better than not having them connect at all. And the app would be of use to people too ill to leave their houses, unable to afford frequent transport into town, or too far away to join a local book discussion group.
“I’m still not sure if releasing it will make things better or not,” he said aloud. And pressed the compile button anyway.
With nothing else to do but wait on his code, Niles traded the library for the bench in his glade. He sat in the sunshine with a third mug of coffee and read—a welcome reward for hours of focussed, detailed work.
When he next blinked, he found himself leaning against the maple.
The sun had disappeared behind the house.
Golden light now burnished the glade and his mind brimmed with unfamiliar stories.
Men going to war. Heavily censored letters, every word cherished by the recipients, being read over and over.
And other letters, laboriously penned, sent with a wish and a prayer.
The images were so clear, he felt the grain of the cheap writing paper under his fingertips.
A breeze stirred the maple’s leaves and Niles straightened from his slouch.
“Thank you for waking me,” he said as if the tree had called his name. “I wouldn’t have liked to miss this golden glow.”
He watched the dimming light with a faint unease in his stomach. “Imaginary lives?” he wondered aloud. “Or real ones?”
No answer came, and Niles kept his gaze on the deepening shadows, letting the peace of his glade comfort him.
When he returned to the library to check on his compiling app and lock up for the night, a book lay on the reception desk.
A thick tome, and not one Niles recognised at first glance.
“I nod off in the glade one time, and of course I miss the day’s only visitor.
Why didn’t they call out? And why leave a book they didn’t borrow from me? ”
Despite his curiosity, Niles detoured to the coffee machine and moments later hot chocolate poured into his mug, adding to the familiar aroma of coffee and books. Niles took a sip, then made his way across the room to inspect the book.
Blue leather with gold stitching, the title embossed and gilded: The Lore of the Shires.
Few readers asked for folklore. Niles had added the classic myths and legends to his selection, but this title hadn’t been amongst them.
Besides, his library was barely four years old, and its shelves held paperbacks and sturdy, linen-bound hardbacks.
Leather and gilding belonged to a different age. Or a different kind of library.
The book bulged in a strange way as if an object was caught between the pages.
Niles turned the cover and found a ginkgo leaf, the deep gold veined in green. Dried leaves being used as bookmarks wasn’t unusual. Niles was about to set it aside when he saw the message written on it. In a beautiful copperplate script, it proclaimed:
You looked up today. It gladdened my heart.