IV.

Above Romel were three floors replete with books, more books than any human could ever hope to read in a lifetime. Reverence was the only word he could think of to describe the chill that passed through him each time he entered this building. He took in breath and smiled a satisfied smile.

                

Until he passed the “return” slot and realized he’d left his old books at home. “Dammit!” he said aloud, only to regret it instantly.

                

A kid passing by, hand in hand with his grandma, heard him, then repeated the word gleefully, and loud enough for Romel to hear above his music, over and over and over some more. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

                

The grandma looked at Romel crookedly. Romel blushed and sped ahead.

                

He passed by the desk of the librarian on his way to the stairs. She, having just spent the last hour reading and rereading the same page of a James Fenimore Cooper novel she was supposed to like because she was a librarian, called to him desperately. “Sir, is there anything I can help you with? Would you like any recommendations? Do you need help navigating our library?” But she was not as loud as the cursing child. Romel never noticed her. This was nothing new for her. Nobody ever did. She forced a smile to no one and went back to her book.

                

Romel went up to the second floor. Moving up and down the stairs were other patrons, a man in a red shirt, a couple, an obviously homeless man who smiled at Romel. He walked passed them cordially, not paying them much mind. After all, he had a cause to attend to.

The upstairs is where the library housed their Psychology section. He made his way through the aisles, stopping frequently, under the compulsion of his desires, to scan through the shelves, taking pleasure in just reading book titles, bumping into the occasional other and exchanging a courteous apology, until, finally, after a long while, he made it to where he was going. Once there, he scanned through books about consciousness. He got lost in this process and might have been there all day, if not for an abrupt noise at his back (his playlist had once more ended without him noticing) startling him from his trance.

              

“Paranormal…paranormal…yes…yes…here it is…” said a voice, a comically high voice, all bumbling and Canadian.

                

Romel thought he recognized the voice. But it couldn’t be.

                

He turned to look and a little gasp escaped him. Usually, Romel wasn’t the type to be impressed by celebrities, at least, this is what he believed about himself. But the person before him, as has been stated already, held a special place in his heart. In addition, it was a little shocking to have come to the library all jumbled up with questions and to meet there the person that put them there in the first place.

                

With trepidation, he tried to get the man’s attention: “Hey man…aren’t you…uh…Marc Uriah?”

                

The man turned to face his questioner, exposing Romel to the kindest set of eyes, all downturned at their edges, to ever meet his gaze. They instantly put Romel at ease, encouraging him to speak some more.

                

“I’m…uh…a fan of yours, sir…and…uh…I was just reading one of your books earlier…Pathways of Purpose…and I had some questions about it that I was hoping maybe you could help me…”

                

Marc Uriah interrupted him. “You know me?”

                

“Uh…yeah,” Romel said nodding, confused since he thought all he’d said made this obvious.

                

“This can’t be,” said Marc Uriah, to himself. “It can’t.”

                

Romel stood there awkwardly not knowing what to say.

                

Finally, when the silence between the two became uncomfortably long, he ventured to ask, “What do you…uh…what do you mean?”

                

Kind eyes dazzling, Marc Uriah responded in an awed little whisper, “I was sitting, writing, alone, cordoned off from my family, thinking up worlds different from ours, beings different from us. A normal day for me. But then I saw, not in my imagination, but with my eyes, a man, made of fire. He spoke to me, you see, and he told me, ‘You’ll meet someone today, someone you don’t know but who’ll know you, and you’re to give him this, ‘The Calling.’ Then he handed me a box, a small one, and in it was a coal, burning like the man. The vision passed, then, but the box…the box remained. I have it here, in my pocket, right now, and I’ll show it to you, if it’s you I’m supposed to give it to.”

                

Romel again was left speechless.

                

“Look, kid, I know what you’re thinking. How could I not? It’s what I thought myself after it had happened. We live in a world of matter (right?) and nothing, and no one, exists outside it. Science has proven it, dammit. Visions like mine, they’re psychosomatic, tricks of an effervescent brain. They’re relics of our ancestral past, memes, archetypes, from back when we stared at stars and imagined they were gods. But, kid,” Marc Uriah said this last sentence as though it were the tortured confession of a guilty man, “the box…the box remained!”

                

It was at this point that Romel started questioning whether or not he should have left his questions well enough alone and stayed, comfortable, at home. His heart pounded painfully in his chest, itch erupted across his hairline, his forearms, his upper back, his breath became short and quick. He swallowed, trying to rid himself of his nerves.

                

“Look…uh…sir…I’m not sure what you expect me to…uh…say to all this…” he said.

                

A ragged Spirit seemed to possess the author in response to Romel’s words. “Just tell me, kid,” he said, nearly begging, “are you the one?”

                

“I…” Romel began, intending to say something that would extricate him from this conversation, get him back to his blissful reality. But then, surprising the conscious parts of himself and betraying his every instinct, instead he said, “show it to me.”

                

He couldn’t believe that had come from him. Maybe it hadn’t, and what was he to make of that? Regardless, he realized, after just a moment’s introspection, that despite his trepidations, despite his desires to escape, a curiosity from nowhere had surged up in him and gripped him, urging him to say what he said.

                

It was very out of character, but there it was, done.

                

“Yes, yes!” said Marc Uriah, “I will.”

                

The author darted his hand into his pocket and from it he produced a little box, the sort engagement rings came in, only this box, it was made of some form of ancient stone, white and smooth and beautiful. Though the light in the library was dim, the box seemed to glitter, as if whatever little light there was, it was drawn direct to the box.

                

“Here it is,” said Marc Uriah, his voice hushed.

                

Romel wasn’t sure what to do now. Indeed, there it was.

                

“You see it too, right?” said Marc Uriah. “Please say you do.”

                

“I…” Romel said, nodding, “I do.”

                

“Then it is real…”

                

“Yes, yes it is…”

                

“Can I open it for you?”

                

Romel was now down deep in this rabbit hole. His curiosity had led him this far. Was there an option to turn back?

“Yes, you can,” Romel said.

A burning unbridled erupted from the faintest opening of the lid. As Marc Uriah drew the lid back further, the heat was joined by a glow that could have only been compared by the pair gathered to a star coming into being. It was dazzling and blinding, and, should this section of the library have been more occupied, it would have surely drawn the attention of all nearby. As it were, it was only them there, witnessing the miracle.

“It’s incredible,” Romel said.

“It is…” said Marc Uriah. “And disconcerting in its implications.”

“Why?” Romel said.

“Because, don’t you understand what this means?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“If all this is real, I’m under imposition to…do as the vision demanded.”

Romel, transfixed by the coal, said dreamily, “Haven’t you already?”

“Not everything, aye. Not yet.” With that, Marc Uriah picked up the coal with his fingertips and, to Romel’s great surprise, forced the fiery thing passed Romel’s lips.

“The vision…told me you were meant to swallow the coal…”

Romel had done just that. Without intending to, he’d allowed the searing thing to slip into his gullet. The burning in him was torturous and brought him to his knees. His fist pounded ground as the scorching stone did its work in him. A cataclysm went off in his chest, splintering, it seemed, his innards, and swallowing them in flame. Every fiber of him hurt. To see stung, to breath burned, to feel, well, there was nothing to feel but pain. Eventually, Romel could take no more and his body gave out. He collapsed face first to the floor, only barely twitching.