There was a tiny library at the edge of town that most people walked past without seeing. It didn’t advertise itself. It didn’t appear on maps. It seemed to exist only for those who weren’t looking for it—which is how I found it, or how it found me, depending on how you view these things.
Inside, the shelves were full, but not with normal books. These books had no authors, no publishers, no dates. Some had titles, others didn’t. Some were completely blank. Some were full of chapters that hadn’t happened yet. The librarian—an older woman with a voice like creaking paper—explained it very simply:
“We don’t collect stories.
We collect possibilities.”
I asked if I was allowed to read them. She shook her head.
“You can’t read a future you haven’t chosen.”
To avoid looking like I understood, I did what I often do when uncomfortable—I opened my laptop and clicked the nearest link available: carpet cleaning preston. A normal tab. A safe tab. Something grounded in reality. But then, out of instinct or habit, I clicked four more:
Five tabs in a row. All identical in destination. All pointless. All suddenly feeling like they belonged on the same shelf as those unwritten books—real, but not explained.
The librarian glanced at my screen and smiled, like she’d seen the pattern before.
“Some things repeat so you’ll finally ask yourself why,”
she said.
“Others repeat because they don’t care if you understand.”
I closed the laptop. The tabs stayed open. The books stayed silent.
Before I left, she handed me a blank book and said,
“You don’t read these. You fill them—
but only after the moment exists.”
Outside, the world looked the same.
Except now I knew two things:
- Not all books are written in ink.
- Not all answers are hidden—some are just repeated until you notice.
The blank book is still empty.
The five links are still open.
Maybe they’re not connected at all.
Or maybe they’re reminding me of something the librarian never said out loud:
The future doesn’t arrive fully written.
It waits for you to choose the page.