Adult short story English language highly commended

‘Abigail’s Library’

By Julian Felice

The large house on the hill had survived relatively unscathed. A few days earlier, the Earth - seething with Her tenants - had shaken Her back, carving deep crevasses in many of the main roads, and wobbling buildings that had seemed immortal. In the more neglected areas, dreams had been flattened by rubble (for dreams are all that the poor can have), and the city had been plunged into a disruption of its safe daily routine, causing a vulnerability rarely shown in today’s self-assuredness. The inevitable aftermath followed - fires, blackouts, overworked emergency workers, looting - as people scrabbled for some sense of normality, something familiar to which to cling. Mother Nature had spoken in ire, although it was generally assumed that, when normality returned (as it inevitably would), her cry for help would be ignored (as it inevitably would).

But, the large house had suffered little. Rosa - the housekeeper - was relieved to find, after diligently making the ninety minute walk to her place of work (because, of course, the buses were not running), only a few broken panes of glass, and that the antique vase - insured for more than Rosa’s own life - had smashed on the marble floor. This same Rosa whose neighbour had been crushed by the sheet of corrugated iron that had been his roof, and whose aunt was still silent since the utility poles had fallen. The family had been away - Rosa remembered not whether it was mountain or beach this time - and she was sure they would appreciate knowing that their home - located in the higher suburbs, and built with the bricks of privilege - had survived the worst that fate could offer.

And thus went her morning: sweeping debris, boarding paneless windows, testing taps and light switches. She straightened elaborately framed paintings and fluffed fancy cushions. With the fine touches of her experience in her craft, she quickly eliminated all evidence of the wider city’s trauma, placing that arm’s length that the affluent like to keep between themselves and catastrophe. When they returned, carrying shopping bags, and their faces etched with worry, they would be grateful to Rosa for sustaining their bubble.

Upstairs, though, it was different. Abigail’s bedroom - in the far corner - had sustained darker bruises. Fond of the young girl - less spoilt and more sensitive than her older siblings, she thought - Rosa was alarmed to find that the four bookcases - the vaults of Abigail’s treasures - had all toppled over. The books were strewn all over the floor. The tremor had not prejudiced by genre, and the scale of the literary destruction would surely devastate the poor girl. Spines were broken (like Rosa’s neighbour’s had been) and pages torn. Improvised bookmarks lay useless. Some covers had bent and folded into themselves, and a tiny book of fictional spells struggled for breath under a heavily thumbed (and quite out of date!) Children’s Encyclopaedia (Abigail so loved the written page that she abhorred online sources). But, what took Rosa most aback was that the brute force of the earthquake seemed to have beaten the letters themselves out of their pages. Words were littered all over Abigail’s duvet (emblazoned with the crest of some school of wizardry that Rosa had heard the kids talk about); symbiotic vowels and consonants covered the desk on which she drew the characters from her imagination; and the beanbag that had hosted many laughs and just as many tears was covered in a thick layer of fonts. Further trickles of letters spilt from the books that Rosa lifted, adding to the cloud swirling at her feet. She found herself dusting words off window ledges, shaking them off cuddly toys, even wiping them off her feet like sticky sand. Then, unsure what to do next, she swept them back into the books, her
broom indiscriminately filling the empty pages, with no sense of order, no sense of structure. After returning the bookcases to their original positions, she picked up each book, gave it a firm shake, and placed them back onto their shelves.

Inside the books, the jumbled words set like jelly. And new stories started to form.

In one, King Arthur tried his best to woo Elizabeth Bennet; in another, it was Mowgli who asked for more gruel; and, in another, Dorothy walked down the yellow brick road with Ben Gunn, Sirius Black, and Horrid Henry. Percy Jackson fought off Shelob with the help of Esio Trot, while Noah filled his Ark with Aslan, Old Major and Jemima Puddleduck. Scrooge was visited by the ghosts of Professor Moriarty, Wally, and The Smartest Giant In Town. The Famous Five had lost one member, but the Secret Seven gained another (with no regard for alliteration!). The top of the Faraway Tree led you to Ankh-Morpork, and, in a stunning coincidence, the Mad Hatter was joined for tea by the Cat In The Hat. The Hardy Boys could now teach you how to make an astronaut’s costume out of cardboard boxes, while “Because 7 8 9” was now the new reason why the skeleton did not go to the ball. Rosa’s broom even changed entire fates as a reformed Mike Teavee won the chocolate factory in this new version (one where Veruca Salt was somehow entirely replaced by Black Beauty), whereas Juliet married Private Peaceful in a ceremony officiated by a creature that had nobbly knees and turned out toes, as well as a poisonous wart at the end of its nose (its name had slid under Abigail’s wardrobe, and not even Rosa could fish it out). As they often do, the stories took root, and thrived.

When Abigail returned - dejected at the sight of her hometown - she went straight to the books she had missed so much. As she turned the pages, though, she noticed that the words no longer seemed right, as if they had been changed. At first, she was distressed, troubled by the worlds she had lost. But then, she started reading.

And as the new stories came to life, she smiled.

Judge’s Comments:

This story is a quietly magical and moving tale that combines social commentary with whimsical writing. Through Rosa’s perspective, the story contrasts the fragility of working-class lives with the insulated safety of the privileged. Alongside this social commentary there is a tender and imaginative metaphor in the form of spilled words. The story is beautifully written, with a love for books, resilience, imagination and whimsy sprinkled throughout.