iv.
the library is not large. it is the size that a library should be, which is to say it is the size of a person standing in the middle of it. the shelves do not press in; they keep their distance, the way books that have been waiting will.
and they have been waiting. each spine has been turned just enough toward the door that you, walking in, can read its lettering without having to stoop. this is the work of someone you will not meet. a custodian who has been arranging the room for the version of you that would, eventually, arrive.
you do not need to pull a book down. you do not need to read. the procession is not asking you to. but one spine is set slightly forward of the others, the way a friend leaves a chair at an angle, and you find your hand on it before you have decided.
the book opens at a page you did not choose. there is a sentence on it. you will not remember the sentence, only that it was the right one, in the way that some sentences are right not because they answer anything but because they recognise you. you set the book back, gently, so that the next reader will find it in the same condition of welcome.
somewhere in the building's larger memory there is a catalogue for this room. you do not consult it. the catalogue is for accidents — for visitors who have lost something. you have not lost anything yet. you have merely been read.
you leave the spine slightly out, where it was. the next room is brighter, and warmer, and the library will keep its small lit lamp on while you are away.