Gloria woke up to the sound of soothing music playing somewhere in the distance. She didn’t know, nor did she worry, that she was standing in a line of people. What bothered her was that there was just one person in front of her who was arguing with a robed man who held a very large book.
Though his back was to her, the man in front of her looked vaguely familiar, heavy set with orangish wisps of hair and dressed in a dark blue business suit. The man in flowing robes stood next to a table piled high with large and small books, and the book he was holding was so large that Gloria wondered how he was able to hold it with one hand while the other turned the pages.
The robed man appeared to be reading to the man in front of her, and he would stop each time the business man interrupted with excessive gesticulation. Gloria could not hear what they were saying even though she was close enough to shush them with a whisper. She watched them argue for several minutes until she realized they were only a third of the way through the book, and she would be standing in line for a very long time.
She turned her attention to the jumble of books on the table that was piled high and teetering. As a librarian she wanted to organize them, but there were no ISBNs on the book jackets, nor were there any titles or authors. She considered that the only - and safest, method for organization would be by size, which would prevent the pile from toppling over. And once she finished she’d probably be able to see the device that just peeked a golden finial behind the pile. Perhaps it was a beautiful stained glass lamp like the one in her office, which she had purchased with her own money at an estate sale in a very expensive neighborhood.
When she finished her imagined reorganization of the books on the table, she turned to look behind her and saw only a blur of people standing in a never-ending line. A pinch in her neck made her turn back towards the two men who were, unfortunately, only half way through the big book.
She rubbed and stretched her neck, noticing that the pinch had completely disappeared. Even the crackling of muscles that usually occurred was gone. She sighed and gave a discreet cough, and then tried her librarian best to be patient and remain calm. Like she would have done if she were in one of those long meetings with city council where parents would drone on and on about books they hadn't read but were challenging to remove from the library shelves.
She bowed her head, closed her eyes, and counted to ten. When she opened her eyes she noticed the floor. Or rather, the lack thereof. She could feel the firmness under her feet, but what she saw was more like thick white fog than a floor. Then she noticed there were no walls, and that thick fog was all around. She looked up and saw the most beautiful blue, cloudless and sunless sky, and felt disoriented and dizzy. She focused back on the two men in front of her who continued to argue.
Finally, the robed man closed the book. He placed it on something behind the table, and motioned for the man to go forward. She felt a pang of horror as a flash of light appeared through his orange wispy hair, and he disappeared into the darkening fog.
The robed man motioned her forward as he took a small book from the top of the teetering (not her imagined) pile of books.
“Gloria Morales,” he said, “welcome.”
His voice was low and soft, and made her feel warm and fuzzy. She didn’t have much to say as he read from the pages of her book. She simply felt amazingly light and happy, until …
“During year twenty-one you were engaged to a man who knew you were his soul mate.”
Gloria looked at the robed man, his kind eyes and comforting expression belying the pain of this one part of her life he had just read. She didn’t know what to say. How could she explain the tears and the sorrow and the anger that she had waded through with her fiance. The hours and days and weeks before he finally let go of her. The year of confusion and angst and frustration, when her parents and friends abandoned her. All because she needed to follow her heart, and be her truest self.
The robed man nodded, and then continued reading. He smiled when he read of the love she was able to express in the arms of a woman. A woman who became her best friend, and whom she married when the laws of the land finally changed to allow for it. His smile ended when he read of the times when she would subtly divert the conversations with her colleagues away from relationships and children. When she would refuse to hold her wife’s hand in public, even though her wife was simply trying to show support during those awful book challenges. When they would argue about not attending dinners and theater outings together with her colleagues.
His smile returned when he read about the time when she and a new, young colleague were planning the next set of books to obtain. Her colleague became very vocal about not letting those dull and dimwitted parents bully the library from shelving books that mattered, regardless of the color of skin, of religious beliefs, of gender and sexuality. And she remembered when her long-held fear dissipated the moment her colleague invited her to his house to have dinner with his husband, and he insisted she bring her wife.
Joy. She felt absolute joy as she stood before the robed man who read the last pages from her book. When he closed the cover, he placed her book on the scale that stood beside him, its golden finial shining brightly. His smile warmed her, and he motioned her forward to the sunlight that shone through the fog and welcomed her in.
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