THE OLD MAN AT THE LIBRARY STARED AT ME AND SAID HIS NAME
I was just trying to reshelve the biography when his gnarled hand gripped my wrist. His breath smelled faintly of stale coffee and something metallic, like old coins. His eyes, watery blue and deeply veined, seemed to bore right through me, an unsettling, desperate intensity in their gaze. The fluorescent lights hummed above, casting a stark, cold glow on his withered face, highlighting every wrinkle.
He leaned in closer, his voice a gravelly whisper, barely audible over the distant murmur of pages turning. “You have her eyes. Exactly her eyes. She always loved this section, you know. Especially the forgotten histories, the ones nobody else bothers with.” I tried to pull my wrist away, a frantic jolt, but his grip tightened, surprisingly strong, a bony vise around my arm.
A profound chill ran down my spine, despite the stuffy warmth and the faint, comforting smell of dust and old paper that permeated the air. My fingers tingled where he’d touched them, a phantom sensation that clawed at my senses. I’d never seen him before, but there was a strange, unsettling familiarity in his face, a fleeting resemblance to someone I vaguely remembered from an old photograph I couldn’t quite place. It felt like a memory I shouldn’t have.
“Who… who are you talking about?” I whispered, my voice barely a tremor, my throat suddenly dry. My heart hammered against my ribs, loud in my ears. He just stared, his grip unwavering, his eyes suddenly filling with profound sorrow, or maybe a twisted form of recognition. Just as I started to feel truly trapped, a shadow fell over us. Then the librarian’s voice cut sharply through the quiet, making me jump.
She said, “Sir, you know we’ve told you not to bother the patrons again.”
👇 Full story continued in the comments…The old man flinched, his grip loosening ever so slightly. The librarian, a woman with a severe bun and steel-rimmed glasses, stood between us, her arms crossed, her expression unyielding. The fluorescent lights seemed to intensify, amplifying the tension in the air.
The old man finally released my wrist, his hand falling limply to his side. He didn’t look at the librarian, his gaze locked on me, that strange intensity still burning in his eyes. “Her name,” he rasped, his voice thick with emotion, “her name was Eliza.”
He blinked, and the sorrow in his eyes seemed to deepen, replaced by a flicker of something else, something I couldn’t decipher. Then, with a sigh that seemed to release years of held breath, he straightened. He took a shaky step back, turning towards the biography section.
“Eliza,” he repeated, his voice barely a whisper. “She loved the biographies… especially of forgotten women. Strong women… brave women… women lost to time.”
He shuffled towards the shelves, his back hunched, disappearing into the labyrinth of books. The librarian waited until he was out of sight before turning to me, her expression softening slightly.
“He’s harmless, just… a bit confused,” she said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “He comes here every day, always looking at the biography section. He thinks he remembers his wife, who he lost many years ago. I’m sorry he startled you.”
I rubbed my wrist, the phantom tingle still there, a lingering echo of his touch. I looked back towards the biography section, where the old man was now running a gnarled hand over the spines of the books. The air around me still felt charged, thick with unspoken words and forgotten stories.
“Eliza?” I whispered, the name tasting strange on my tongue, as if I’d known it before.
The librarian tilted her head, studying me with a curious look. “Are you alright, dear?”
I took a deep breath, trying to shake off the lingering unease. “Yes, I… I think so,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just a little shaken.”
I knew I should probably leave, go back to the mundane realities of my own life. But something kept me rooted to the spot, a pull that I couldn’t explain. I felt compelled to know more.
“He mentioned… my eyes,” I said, my voice hesitant. “He said they reminded him of her.”
The librarian hesitated, then sighed. “He says that to everyone with blue eyes, dear. He just wants to remember her. He’s been doing this for decades.”
She turned to walk away, and I reached out a hand to stop her. “Wait, can you tell me more about her? About Eliza?”
The librarian paused, her expression a mixture of pity and resignation. After a moment, she led me to the back of the biography section, pulling a worn, leather-bound book from the shelf. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams as she opened it.
“He used to bring this book every time he came,” she said, her voice gentle. “It’s a scrapbook, filled with letters and photographs. All about his wife, Eliza.”
I leaned closer, peering over her shoulder. The pages were filled with faded photographs, letters written in elegant script, and pressed flowers. And as I looked, a chill, a deeper, more profound chill, ran down my spine. The woman in the photographs… the woman with those familiar blue eyes… the woman whose forgotten history I’d stumbled upon in that old library… it was me. Or rather, it felt like a version of me, a different lifetime I couldn’t remember, trapped in a past I didn’t know.
The old man had noticed the resemblance, because the book was full of pictures of the same woman, she just did not remember any of it.