The Library



Even though the library is merely a large rectangular room with no nooks, bends or rises, the eye finds it hard to take in all at once. Floor-to-ceiling shelves cover most of the windowless walls (even more so than in the study), and the main part of the open wooden floor is composed of a grid of large squares --- over a meter in width --- some in complex designs or with unrecognizable equipment on them. Each of the squares is exactly the same size, but no two look alike. The grid is itself square, and is bordered by a thin frame of grey metal embedded in the floor; outside of this border a more normal wooden floor, blank of any ornamentation, stretches to the four walls.

Several boxes and wooden crates are strewn sparsely about the floor as well, appearing a bit at sea in all the patterned space. The open ones all appear to have books or papers in them. While many of the shelves are full of books, the empty space remaining should more than hold the contents still packed.

You move to the center of the room and survey the walls. One shelf is notable for having only books of exactly equal height. Also on the shelves are some objects that are not books. One shelf holds a black dodecahedron. More than one shelf contains a pair of carved wooden bookends, and there are a few regular geometrical shapes and solids that appear to be acting as paperweights. A few small framed photographs stand out here and there.

You notice that there is a track in the floor, and another in the ceiling, perfectly positioned so that ladders could slide along them, giving access to the higher shelves. No ladder presents itself to your sight, however. The ladder track curves very broadly at the corners, as if whatever ladder it is intended for is very wide.

There are two doors in this room, one in the north wall and one in the east wall. To the left of the north door, a large dark gray rectangle hangs on the wall, at least two meters high but not even half a meter wide. It somewhat resembles a solar panel. Near it stands a large jointed wooden structure that clearly derives its ancestry both from coat racks and playground jungle gyms. It is about the size of a horse, but considerably less symmetrical. Next to the wooden structure, there is a coil of rope pushed up against the wall.





(Last remodeled on 12/6/02002)