Donald Shinn

The Living Library Donald Shinn

Diana thought spending a week in a cabin at the Jersey shore sounded like a fun idea. She just wasn't expecting this Jersey shore. A one mile walk to the mucky bay, a three mile walk to the ocean, no boardwalk, no arcades, no frozen custard or salt water taffy. The bay more resembled a swamp and the beach at the ocean was small and dotted with prickly plants designed to keep the sand from blowing away. Even worse, there was no Internet or cellular service. Just her parents and their friends the Gundersons, who owned the cabins. There was no air conditioning despite stifling heat and humidity. Desperate for relief Diana sets off to find someplace cooler and stumbles upon a small, old library with a working air conditioner. The cool darkness under a library table becomes too much for her to resist, so she lies down to take a nap. When she awakens she finds herself locked in the library and an odd cast of characters have emerged from their books. Cleopatra, King Arthur, Don Quixote and Romeo have assumed human form and are offering to help her. Has she gone mad? Don Quixote pulls Dr. Freud from his biography to assure her she's sane, which doesn't reassure her at all. The characters do what they can to assist Diana in escaping the library and along the way she learns their stories and she also learns more about herself. This is a fun, short story that can be read in about an hour.