Muse's Challenge: Loneliness

by Aborigen

Nov. 14, 2024: "Imagine this: a character who is seeking something lost. They come to a hidden place, perhaps a quiet forest or an ancient library, somewhere almost forgotten by time. There, they meet a figure—a being of immense presence, much like the Giantess, though perhaps with a wisdom that seems otherworldly. Let this being guide them, not necessarily by giving them answers, but by offering questions that stir something deep within. Let the character wrestle with their own understanding, as they’re drawn into the mystery of what they seek."


“Owain Riddle,” read the librarian from her monitor. “No, no overdue fines. You have one book out, The Life and Times of Montgomery Grey. Not due for another week.” She adjusted her glasses and grinned at him. “Did you need anything else?”

“Just the directions to the adult nonfiction section.”

She traced the path to the elevators and then his route on the fourth floor in highlighter on a crisply printed map. “We’re open late tonight,” she said, turning the map toward him, “so feel free to take your time.”

He smiled and nodded. “Sorry, I just never noticed this branch before. Usually I’m down at Honeycutt. I honestly don’t know how I could’ve missed a building like this.”

The librarian’s lips wrinkled in a cute, tight smile. “You’d be surprised how often we hear that. It’s not like we just sprung up overnight.” He laughed politely and found the brushed-steel doors of the elevators. The clomping steps of teenagers echoed down the stairwell next to him, and he debated whether he was in shape enough to take the stairs, but then the door dinged and he rode up.

The fourth floor was remarkably similar to the first; perhaps each floor had a reference desk on your left, once you left the elevator. That would be pretty smart design, perhaps, for people who needed a repeating pattern to get around. On the other hand, if you were on the wrong floor, you wouldn’t know until you actually looked at the book titles. Maybe it was smarter to give each section its own distinct geography …

Owain sighed. His thoughts had gotten away from him again. What did he know about designing libraries? He just wanted to break into philosophy, study some philosophers. Look for answers.

The librarian behind this reference desk looked nothing like the aging white woman on the first floor: this was a pudgy Black man in a cardigan. That was helpful, at least. If they worked the same shifts every day, all he had to do was come here at— Stop, Owain, he told himself.

He found the biographies section, and within that he found a couple shelves of philosopher biographies. He picked a few of the names he recognized—Hegel, Descartes, Jung, Schopenhauer—and brought them to a long table. Despite the age and dignity of this building, he didn’t see any wooden desks for study, partitioned, like he would have expected. Instead, there were three double-wide, long white tables with computers at each corner, leaving two seats in the middle on either side for people who just wanted to read. Three of the computers were taken by men, one of whom smelled vaguely of urine; Owain sat down by the empty terminal and started to poke through the book on Hegel.

What even is this, he thought. He was born in an entirely different world from me, of course he’s going to think this or that. But that’s not even relevant to what’s going on in my world.

And what is going on in your world?

The voice he heard was womanly, but huge and sweeping like a violin section of an orchestra. He looked around, but there were only the three men nearby. Another librarian, older with a large butt rolling around under her flouncy, flowery skirt, pushed a cart of books and disappeared in the stacks. If she had spoken, surely the other guys would’ve noticed. Owain looked up at the ceiling, looking for a PA system. Anyway, that would be a weird thing to broadcast over the speakers.

He paused and looked past the philosophy section and out at the wooden window panes overlooking the neighborhood. Really, it was unlikely that he could have lived eight blocks away and never been aware of this place. Honeycutt Library was twelve blocks away, this place should’ve come up on a web search.

What was going on in his world, anyway. He flipped through the pages of Hegel’s life and closed it, pushed it away. Well, for one thing, he was desperately lonely. He wasn’t sure when he’d lost all his friends, but one day he looked through his contacts on his phone, and there wasn’t one person he’d talked to in over two years. All the calls in his record were from his hospital, two shops he’d done business with at some time, and some voicemails from political fundraisers. It was that time of year again.

He ran a fingertip along the spine of the Jung book. Another old German guy with a lot of ideas about how the brain’s supposed to work. Probably abused by his mother … no, that was Freud. Was Freud philosophy? For that matter, was Jung?

What happened to your friends? What’s been keeping you so busy?

That voice again, not louder but more confident, as if breaking through his concentration the first time gave it a stronger inroad to him. He looked around, irritated more than surprised, but everything was still in place. The only difference was a large shadow that passed by the windows, a large wall of flesh-tone something that glided past one set of eight small panes, then by the next set of eight. It looked like something was flying awfully close to the building, but what plane would dare that on the fourth floor? Maybe a billboard sign came undone. That would be a cool thing to see.

But what had kept him so busy? He stared at the window, hoping to see the object again, but the question slipped its fingers around the wrinkles of his brain and latched securely. He’d had his job, of course. No friends there, but it wasn’t the kind of place that fostered friendship. Observing birthdays was mandatory, everyone got a slice of sheet cake, and the meeting room where they’d gathered cleared out after 25 minutes of awkward conversation. Nobody wanted to hang out afterward, nobody asked personal questions. Owain assumed that, like him, everyone crawled home in rush-hour traffic, heated up leftovers from a restaurant two days ago, and stoned their brain with bottom-shelf booze in a plastic jug and some series on whatever streaming service.

Yes, that’s how the years went by. The weekends were dedicated to touching base with family, running errands, watching YouTube videos to do basic home repairs and maintenance. During certain times of the year, he’d go to a sports bar to watch the local heroes on eight of the fifteen screens at the Super Bowl. He went alone, it didn’t occur to him to call anyone out, and he didn’t make any friends over IPAs and wings.

Now that he looked at it, it sounded disgusting. Why was that so acceptable for so long?

It’s not too late to repair things, the huge woman’s voice said. All you need is to resent where you are enough.

Well, that certainly filled the bill. Fit the bill? He frowned and looked out the windows again. The far set of eight windows were half-blocked by a fleshy curve, and the eight beside them were entirely blocked by a thick nest of dark curly hair. Coarse hairs, curly and kinked, rasping against the panes, like something pressing against the building. But what in the world could it be? And why was he the only person in the area curious about this disturbance?