Prose Zachary D Dover

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Zachary Dover

Zachary is a 21 year old aspiring writer, currently studying English Literature at Pasadena City College. He lives at home with his brother, sister, mother, and father in a small suburb about 30 mins away from Los Angeles called Glendora.

The Library

The once pure white columns which guarded the immense nucleus of knowledge that was my public library, was the first form of purity that had been defaced. Now, the marble was cracked, a schism that enabled a ruin. The only thing alive about the barren, desolate structure, was the bell in its tower that rang signaling a new hour. I hadn’t visited since I was a child, since I had gone on a half-day walking-field-trip- which was supposed to expose me to the wonders of knowledge just by looking at it. Clearly the tired gag had no effect upon me. And if it didn’t affect me, it surely had no effect on my classmates. After work I would drive past the old building and would feel a sort of pity in my stomach. I did understand, to a degree, how the old thing might feel: it was losing out to a device that wasn’t, particularly, cemented in reality; evident in the sagging disappointed columns that looked like a tired middle-aged man, neither innovative nor archaic but made entirely of mediocrity.

Regardless of the pity, I felt a slight annoyance at the pitiful building. A dichotomy of sorts, of respect and pragmatism. If you own a horse and it breaks its leg you shoot it. It's only sensible. Killing in some cases is a Catholic’s kindness. And as the city grew around it, it only looked increasingly desperate. Just raze her, I’d say on my drive-by; put her out of misery. With the steady growth of the city, the homeless population grew too, to boot, they gathered like maggots to a corpse on the library's plaza. But still, the old hag held on. A few months later, in an attempt to curb the homeless infestation, the abandoned church- next door to the library- was torn down in favor of a computer arcade. The parents raised bloody hell and shortly, the homeless were bussed away to some other library. And once again I was stuck with the pulchritudinous view. Every time I laid my eyes upon it I was met with an anxious impatience, unable to understand why the city couldn’t simply move on as it did with the church. The impatience then quickly festered into slight resentment and I began to take an alternate route home, simply to ration myself from sheer anguish when acknowledging the mere existence of that tired building.

My girlfriend sat in our dining room, she scrolled on her phone, paying no mind to my arrival until I set my bag down and said hello. She said hello; she continued scrolling.

- How was your day? I asked. - It was fine, yours? - Fine. That Thompson kid acted up again. Gave him his third referral in three weeks. It's only

August, I mused, at this pace he’ll be in the hall with Sandy. - Cool. I watched the Kardashians and then facetimed Jenna; then we facetimed Emma- who was like. Totally preggers- and it showed! O’ em gee, you should have seen her- she's so fat!

She used to be the prettiest girl too. - Does this make you happy? I asked. I smirked.

- Of course. She rolled her eyes and kept scrolling. She was beautiful… and dumb. She my was my dumb and beautiful girl. I gazed at her. She was in her usual pink tracksuit that had juicy on the booty and wore her same plastic jewelry that, when glinted in the sun just right, looked real. That's all that really matters. I broke my gaze and turned away.

- Bt dubs, I put cookies in, so shower and eat up. We had just moved in three months before and our quaint abode certainly looked the part. The walls were naked, void of memory, the only thing that hung was our plasma TV as if it were Jesus on the cross. The office boxes had books which accumulated dust, we just hadn’t had time to construct the bookshelves- which lay in another box somewhere in the garage- so we compromised and in a pragmatic fervor, assembled our two desks and computers which enabled us to work from home. The only other thing we assembled was the second plasma that came in tandem with my game system. I quickly showered and then returned to the office where I picked out Dubliners, went to my bed, and began to read The Sisters. About four or five pages in, I began to smell the faint odour of burn.

- I haven’t even the most miniscule inclination of worry, I thought. Eveline surely knows what she is doing. Just as the sherry was poured, the smoke alarm screamed and smoke began to seep into my room. Eveline screamed and I leaped to her aid, a mad, short, dash to the kitchen.

- I burnt the cookies! She screamed. Indeed she did. A small flame rose, its fingers dancing behind the oven door. I rushed to the garage and found a miniature fire extinguisher, I let the cream loose like an okinawan flame thrower. The fire went out and all that was left were frosted, charred, chocolate chip cookies. I took a chair and took out the batteries from the wailing alarm then went to Eveline who had begun to cry.

- It’s okay, my dear, it's fine, said I.

The next day, my friend and I went on a bike ride. My hometown was quite beautiful, I realized. There were many oak trees with many squirrels and many o’korns. They stood tall and proud, lush with the many gifts of a wet summer; their trunks sturdy, tempered finely, their arms stretched wide, welcoming; their faces kind, comely. It was a sunny day and cloudless so the sky was extra blue like a golden ocean. The foothills stood mighty; their purple skin regal. The Seabreeze came inland and with it the seagulls; a flock of parrots squawked and flew high- so high they looked like a murder of tiny green dots.

We rode up the hill into the foothills and parted ways at a fork in the trail. Peddling for a while, I came to a clearing, not a moment too soon as the sun had begun to flog my back and my breath became timid. I found shade on an old trunk cut so as to minimize the likelihood of a forest

fire. I took a swig of water and went for a quick think. When I paused, I lifted my head from my lap to see a buck and his family gazing upon my sweatiness with those big and round mahogany eyes. His antlers were healthy, he turned away unconcerned and they trotted away. I decided I had ought to turn tail as well and made my way back down to the tip of the hill. Judah and I met at the tip of the hill and we began our descent. Back to the brick and mortar and asphalt.

- My bathroom mirror cracked somehow, said Judah. - Whaddya mean somehow?, I replied. I panted as sweattle became, you could have sailen a damn boat down the River Nose.

- I dunno, he said. I woke up and took a shower, got out and went to shave, there it was, cracked like a frozen lake. - You know, said I. You can tell me if you punched it. I am not here to cast judgement, my friend. - Snifolem! I did no such thing, he said. His head bobbed up and down, in tune with his peddling.

- It is truly the oddest thing, surely!- really!, he swore. I had let my eyes roll in a bout of unforced skepticism.

- Don’t be so pessimistic. I think there is a ghost in my house, in my house- I’ve had my fair share of flickering lights! - Flickering lights and broken mirrors, are you sure you’vnt gone insane? Have you relocated to a mavis haven? - No, no I hadn't! You know, aside from the flickering lights and broken mirrors, my home is quite homely! - So how in the hell did your mirror just crack- are you pulling my ear? - No sir, there are no pulls here. I swear, it just cracked; I have not to fear, I approached a handyman for a quote; it took him what felt like a year to reply; but, nonetheless, it will cost me a mere buck-twenty! - It’s funny, Judah went on. I looked like a damned demon with it cracked so. My face was contorted, sideways, and oblong, and acute and obtuse. Like some sort of eerie funhousethe mirror, not my home! - Well, my friend, it's a good thing your face is hittin’ slightly below .250. The sun had begun to set and the twilight colors then riddled the sky. It was a quiet time in Leadora. A park had little girls moshed around a ball in pink and purple jerseys, in a hazy chaos of youthful form as the parents sat watching in lawn chairs and worked on cases or graded papers or took phone calls in the brief lull, allowing them a commodity before dinner. Retired joggers with white hair jogged by. Old ladies with pound weights power walked. Young couples with freedom walked their dogs. Leadora was but a sleepy hollow.

Judah's breath became ragged. Mine had worsened as well. That single conversation just

about knocked the wind out of us- as if Tyson had thrown us each a right hook that hit our kidneys. Luckily, for now, it was all stop signs on our route, being twilight, the smaller streets that intercepted our route were quiet, allowing us to coast through to our agreed break corner at the intersection before my block. Shortly, we reached it as the eastbound and westbound traffic blurred on. I lowered my head. Then, I looked up to see a young man walking towards us with his nose to the ground.

- Hey, what the hell!? He had stepped off into the crosswalk, his body flew; brain oblivious to his fate.

One sunday morning, on a warm day, a day when the promise of a hot Californian summer rang true, my mother-in-law to-be had come to visit Eveline and me. Our home, still after six months, was the same as it was three months prior. The only thing that contributed to a positive quality of life, that wasn’t preposterous nor adequate, was the new a/c that I had installed; after we had cut out innen out and chickfilay from our weekly diet for a few weeks, we splurged at Lowes.

Kippa came in with a few bags of gifts and her patented bravado; her blonde hair had just been straightened, it fell softly on the small of her back, her lips heavily drawn red, the earrings dangling golden, her cheeks bulged with botox complete with the unprovoked scowl of a senior divorcee. She always came with gifts and that day was no different; gifts that only seemed to engorge our garage. She brought a bag full of old books and a bag full of pots and pans- she had just bought a new set. This was her third set since we moved in. As she set her things down she took off her glasses and looked around, her face frowned in mock disappointment at the rat hole we called home, another thing worthy of her gripe. She brushed off a place on our couch and sat down.

- Snifolem, my dear; I’ve a few errands for you to run, do you mind. She had this really long drawl… as if she was cheeky- but she wasn’t trying to be.

-Not at all Kip. What can I do forya?

- I've these books. These heavy, dreadful, books. I believe they were your father’s. She motioned to Eveline.

- I won't mention his whore of a name in such a… peaceful place; I wish for you to take them to the library.

- Okay-

- And these pots and pans to the Goodwill... on Bennet; I hope the Africans will find these suitable for their poverty issues.

- Right, I replied. I’m sure they will.

- And Eveline, m’dear, she said. How’s about we get ourselves a manicure. A pedicure too.

-Oh, but, will you pay. … I forgot my card at home.

- That's like… totally fine, said Eveline. Happy to be in her presence. It was seldom.

The Goodwill was just east and below from downtown. I took the long way through mainstreet. Driving through downtown always billied my bosom. Especially since I had grown as the city had grown. When I was born it was still Smalltown, USA. And to an extent it still was. Now it was a curious hybrid of a budding mini metropolis where everyone still knew anyone worth knowing. Everyone worth knowing lived north of Leadora blvd., in some capacity, everyone worth knowing lived off of Main Street. Downtown still had the giants of old: the old Donahue theater and the music hall where my grandfolks and everyone’s grandfolks still danced to some swing. But, instead of the old citrus markets that made up the infrastructure when I was a child, there were sleek phone stores and modern TV centers and glass electronic depots where you could get any computer part you’d ever be able to fathom- even the ones you’d never knew existed, the ones that came from the african uranium mines- like an NVIDIA Ampere A100, PCLe, 250W, 40 GB Passive, Double Wide, Full Height GPU Customer Install, that goes for just over 15 ½ grand. And the small town magic, despite the dystopian products, still existed too. On any given day, if you were to walk down Main Street, you could find some film crew filmin’ some mid-tier Hollywood film. The town with its confused nature, was something of a robotic creature, a Frankentstein of the 21st century. I arrived at the Goodwill and was met by a pinheaded, tall, slender, man who was happy to see me. He appreciated Kip’s generosity.

It looked gothic. The old thing towered before me. Its columns cracked. Gargoyles stood as sentries on pillars above, they met my eyes with a slight ire as if they dreaded their forgotten. Above them, the flag and the city flag flew tattered like two veteran jolly rogers. The arches swung wide, gaping with a sleepy extravagance. The buildings’ shillings were cracked. The computer arcade next door provided an odd air, it was teeming with little worker bees screaming for high scores; the building was a spaceship, postmodern, that looked so miniscule next to the giant of old. And up close, the old thing, oddly, didn’t look as haggled as I remembered- it had been a few months since I last passed by- but the old building and its scars had a stoic, grim, assuredness on its face as if it were a grizzled old king, with a tattered cloak, scars on his face, that would not be taken down by a mere, measly, lowly, rocket- not when armed with his steel.

To my chagrin, the book bin was inside. I descended to the dungeon. My pity had been misplaced. Before me stood the old librarian. She wore a pleasant smile and a pink, buttoned, cardigan, her glasses rested on her nose looking to fall, and her grey hair had a pencil in its tail.

- Good afternoon, she said. - Hullo. I’ve a few books for you.

- Oh how wonderful. We are always in need of good books, she said as she scanned them. We must keep up with the times, of course. - Of course… , I replied. My eyes couldn’t help but to peel behind her. Taking in the scene, I found my pity to be misplaced. - For donation or for sale? - Huh- oh, yes, donation. - Are you feeling well? I snapped out of my hypnosis, Yes sorry. For donation.

- Wonderful. Thank you much. I couldn’t help but to move to the common room as she inserted the books into the computer system.

My pity had been misplaced. The bookshelves were metallic, polished, new. The carpet was clean and smelled like a rose bush. And the common room. How fit with youth! Young scholars were sprawled across couches with books and the tables full with young writers! Students typed papers on a stretch of new computers! Oh how my pity had been misplaced; the old thing hadn’t aged a day!

(Zachary Dover)