The Book of Sand, Recovered and Lost - Part 1 by Owen Townend

 

Call me mistaken or mad but I’m sure I found The Book of Sand. Jorge Luis Borges, please forgive me.

            At the time I was working at The National Library as an assistant, though my heart wasn’t in the full responsibilities of the job. Whenever possible, I would avoid visitors and their confounding inquiries and disappear into the stacks.

            Being a reader of Borges in my youth, I fancied that The National Library he wrote about was the very same that I worked at. Recalling the story of The Book of Sand, I browsed the basement where the book had allegedly been abandoned. I rummaged through yellowing maps and tissue-thin periodicals till I found a damp shelf. It was fragile but still standing with three books on it. I took each out and opened them until I found the one that contained more pages than the spine would suggest. More pages than seemed possible. The numbering was inconsistent and each page contained a different inscription seemingly unrelated to the ones that had gone on before. I had found The Book of Sand or else a very close approximation.

            My curiosity satisfied, all that remained in me was terrified confusion. When the librarian called my name in an arch tone, I replaced the book and ran back up the staircase. I was given my first serious disciplinary but was glad of it. Better to be held in contempt than be allowed to roam in a space where such a staggering tome existed.

            The question became what to do about The Book of Sand now that I knew where it resided. I’ll admit my desire to remove it from the basement was entirely selfish: I didn’t think to mention its existence to the librarian or indeed anyone else. Perhaps they already knew. All I knew for sure was that I wanted it gone.

            For a month after the incident in the basement, I was working the main desk, answering public inquiries that the librarian had no time for. This often meant crazies and fools who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

            My least favourite was a man who traipsed around town in a green silk kimono in all weathers and wore more make-up than I did. Every time he approached the desk, he would hold his head high as if he knew he would somehow win the conversation he was about to enter.

            “I know you are running out of room for all your wondrous books,” he told me. “Please allow me to take a couple of the older ones off your hands. For a thick leatherbound tome with little academic value, I will pay handsomely.”

            For a couple of weeks I refused him, insisting that we did not dispose of our books that way. He was quite candid that he only wanted our discards to line his shelves at home. His intentions were entirely boastful and not worthy of The National Library.

            And yet my workplace pride had limits, especially where the looming threat of The Book of Sands was concerned. My fear was that, if the book were discovered and announced, it would drive well-meaning academics to the edge and be burned by zealots suspecting the devil’s work. Just knowing The Book of Sand existed wore away at my prevailing belief that everything ends and logic prevails. Damn Borges for drawing me to a real-life impossibility!
            However, following the logic of the nameless narrator of the story, I might just spare humanity’s good senses by placing it into the possession of a person who would never actually read it. And so I came to regard the man in the green kimono in a very different light.

            When the librarian wasn’t looking, I whispered into his ear, “I have such a book. Meet me at the park, third bench on from the entrance in one hour. We shall make a deal.”

            The man in the kimono gazed at me a moment with distrust but then a conspiratorial smirk confirmed to me that he would comply.

            When the librarian went on lunch, I rushed down to the basement and grabbed The Book of Sand and hid it in my jacket. Then, when I was allowed to leave for lunch, I sneaked out the back way and ran across the way to the park.