At the top step, April let out a short sigh of accomplishment, and Garrett unwillingly let out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t fallen.
“Why do you have so many books to carry upstairs anyway?” wondered Garrett.
“Well, every now and then, we receive donations from the Decided libraries uptown. They give us the ones they don’t want any more or the outdated ones. Sometimes, library patrons will donate new books to us out of the kindness of their hearts. Today happens to be one of those days when I got a new shipment of them. I don’t like to make a lot of trips going up and down the stairs, so I grab as many as I can and take them where they need to go.”
Looking at all the full shelves on the second floor, Garrett wondered where they’d all go. “Which kinds of books are on the first floor?”
“Children’s books mostly. There are a few other genres of fiction, but most of the collection is up here. The first floor is for those that can’t make it up the stairs and for people looking for sciorbs to use for the dataweb.”
“Ah, I see. So, there’s a room full of sciorbs downstairs?”
April finally made it to a short table and set the books down, then turned to face Garrett. “There is, but most of the sciorbs don’t work. It doesn’t matter though. Not many people come to the library. I guess everyone is too busy with their lives and work to worry about reading.”
Garrett watched the sadness in her downcast eyes grow as she talked about the absence of visitors to the library. Not knowing what to say, he remained silent.
“Anyway, since you said you’d be returning today, I selected all the books in the library that might have what you’re looking for. I perused through some of the newly donated books but found nothing concerning The Council. Well, in all but one of the books. I’ve stacked them all upstairs for you if you want to go take a look.”
“Sure,” agreed Garrett.
April nodded and led Garrett back to the spiral staircase leading to the third floor. When Garrett’s line of sight passed over the railing at the top, his eyes widened. Every speck of dust had been cleaned in the room and the wood shined as if it were brand new.
“April, did you do all this?”
She glanced back and simply smiled at him, nodding.
“Are you serious? You didn’t have to do this.”
“Of course, I did. We rarely get visitors to the library as I said before, and I didn’t want our latest visitor going around saying that we Undecided have a filthy library.”
Garrett would have worried that she meant it as an insult if she hadn’t been grinning from ear to ear. Still, he couldn’t help feeling bad.
“And besides, it gave me something to do this morning. Not to mention that I probably should have been keeping it up in the first place instead of having my nose in a book all the time. But since no one came up here, I figured why bother. You gave me a reason to clean it up.” April moved to a side table that Garrett was sure wasn’t there yesterday and gestured to a stack of six, thick, old bound books. “Other than the one you looked at yesterday, these are all that we have with mentioning’s about The Council.”
Garrett walked over and peered at the titles. From top to bottom they read: Taeopia’s Origins, Taeopia’s Cultures and Peoples Volumes 1-3,Taeopian Way of Life, and the last one was The Life Plan System. “Thank you, April. You really didn’t have to do all of this.”
“It’s my pleasure, fellow library-goer.”
Garrett chuckled once and pulled the book from the top. “I guess I’ll start here.”
“All right then, I’ll leave you to it.” April left in a flash to organize the new books.
Garrett focused on the book in his hand, reading the title twice, then placed it back on the top of the stack. Returning to the shelf where he’d taken a book from yesterday, he found A Brief History of the World of Taeopia and opened it back to where he’d left off.
Although April had added a side table, there was still no chair, so he sat on the newly cleaned floor and began to read. Reaching into his side pocket, he removed the notebook and pen he’d stuffed there and placed it next to him, ready for his notetaking.
For hours he read, skimming through the rest of the book to check for anything important. When he realized there was nothing of any importance, he moved on to the book on the top of the stack. It quickly yielded no results, so he moved on.
Halfway through volume two of Taeopia’s Cultures and Peoples, he slammed the book closed in frustration and stared at the remaining pile of books. Laying the book aside, he crawled over to the stack of books and braced the top two in order to slide the last one, The Life Plan System, from its place at the bottom. He skipped the first few pages, searching for the table of contents. Ignoring the first few useless lists, one toward the bottom caught his eye—the approval of Life Plans. Noting the page number, he skipped to it and began to read:
‘The culmination of each individual’s Life Plan is the approval of the esteemed Council. Each and every Life Plan must be approved by The Council, who meticulously examines it for any potential illegalities and flaws. Upon approval, the Life Plan will begin once it is announced on Declaration Day. Each citizen of Taeopia, whether they be of the Decided or Undecided sector of the population must submit their Life
