An Occurence at a Fowl, Bleak Library

In celebration of Halloween, I wrote this short story.

An Occurrence at a Foul, Bleak Library

It was a dark, perhaps stormy night. Primus had been working on his project, 6 straight hours worth of toil. Now almost completed, he stretched out comfortably. “Ahh…” he thought, “October 31st, I’ve still got 6 days to finish.” Suddenly, there came a sound, from the kitchen. As he crept over to investigate, “Fwap!” A croissant flew into his face! Then, another sound- “Clink!”

Primus sprinted to his room, and was horrified to see his glass of cranberry juice spilled on his precious project. He quickly rushed over to pick up the glass when he heard the sound of his door slamming behind him. Primus spun around, but instead of seeing a door, there was a bookshelf! Turning around again, he saw tens of bookshelves surrounding him!

Peering up and down a neat isle of books, Primus realized that he was in a library. While he was still wondering how he had gotten here from his room, something caught his eye on the title of a book. “The Achievements of Kevin the Great,” he read slowly. For months he had been competing with a friend, Kevin academically, trying to achieve a higher grade. In the past weeks, he had been almost as good as Kevin! Yet, somehow, there was a book lamenting Kevin’ achievements in this strange library.

Flipping through the pages of the hardback, Primus thought, “This book must be referring to another Kevin.” Primus was stunned, however, to see descriptions about the Kevin he knew (Grew up in Fremont, CA, attended blah, blah schools…). He stopped however, when he saw a line in the book: Graduated from Harvard University with a Masters degree as a Surgical Doctor, 2017. Graduated? 2017? Primus’ surprise soon turned into panic as he flipped to the inside front cover: Published in 2024. 16 years into the future!

Primus was anguished. He was in the future! Looking around, he saw titles of “Kevin’s Achievements,” “The life of Kevin Chen,” and other biographies on his rival from 2008. Primus ran through the library scanning the “L” section (for Lam) under the biographies section. Not a single mention of himself. Picking up “The Achievements of Kevin the Great,” again, Primus flipped through more carefully. The book mentioned hundreds of great accomplishments that Kevin had apparently made. Then, his ears pricked up as he heard another noise.

A book slid off the shelf. However, instead of falling to the ground, it remained suspended in midair. As Primus carefully approached it, more books started sliding off their shelves. The first book began moving, and all the other ones followed it. A sea of manuscripts, tomes, novels, and more began swirling and flying around him their pages flipping wildly! The name “Kevin” appeared to be everywhere Primus looked. The tornado of pages grew even wilder, and the floor and all other surroundings appeared to be lost.

Piece by piece, reality fell away like a finished jigsaw puzzle being taken apart again, piece by piece. Before long, Primus was only surrounded by words, not even the flickering pages or covers, just words. He could hear sounds of a wild world, laughter, bells, a wagon, a dictionary tumbling to the floor, everything he had heard before - he heard it then. Even the words were becoming distorted now, there were colors and shapes and figures and objects, and there were people, lines, animals and plants, words, numbers, the library’s knowledge! Then, there was nothing.

“Ugh,” choked out Primus. He couldn’t see anything. Where was he? Lifting his hand to his face, he felt something flaky. A croissant? Pulling the pastry off his face, he surveyed his surroundings. He was in his home, in the kitchen, lying on the floor.


What Actually Happened

Primus, after working on his project for such a long time, became hungry and placed a can/box of Oven-Ready croissants in his oven. Because he was so deluded, he forgot to open the can. After hearing the noise, which came from a small leak in the can due to pressure expanding gasses, he went over to the kitchen. The croissant flew out of the oven (have you ever heard of the poem “The turkey flew out of the oven?”) and hit him in the face. Primus was so frightened that he fainted.

Because he had worked so hard, he began to dream crazily. He dreamed of Kevin’s superiority in the future, because throughout his time working on the project, he feared that his rival would obtain a higher score than he had. The loss of realism near the end of his dream was simply due to his delusional brain. There was so much on his mind, it all came together, and the resulting shock was so great, it woke Primus up.

In the end, he woke up in the middle of his kitchen floor with a croissant in his face, as that was where he fell asleep.

Notes and Acknowledgements

· Primus would never work six hours straight on a project due in 6 days.
· Primus doesn’t drink Cranberry Juice.
· Kevin does, in fact, want to be a Surgical Doctor when he grows up.
· Credits to “The Phantom Tollbooth” for giving me ideas for such a surreal world.
· Croissant is the nickname of Siddhant, my good friend.
· Croissants taste good.
· The title is a reference to “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” where the subject also dreams/hallucinates of something that is nothing like what actually happened.