A woman at the library sale cut through the aisles of propped-up card tables to drop Borges onto the stack I’d already bought. Out of breath, she explained that she needed to give me Labyrinths. “I think you’ll love it.” When I lurched toward the register to buy it, she all but shouted, “no no. I already paid for you.”
On a train to Providence to interview for a grad school two years later, I finally got around to Labyrinths. To take my mind off things. I felt naked with independence: I’d arranged the interview myself, booked the train, bought the suit I was sweating through at Macy’s in Downtown Crossing; things weren’t going to work out with Nicole. The suit was a bit loose in the shoulders, but I didn’t know that then.
Out on the street, going down the stairways inside Constitution Station, riding the subway,
At a bump in the track, “The Aleph” slipped off the Labyrinth's pages. The words pooled on the burgundy floor of the train, between my feet. They sizzled, bubbled like acid, and fumed—they were burning a hole in the floor of the train. I glanced around at the other commuters, who hadn’t noticed, then down again at my feet, where the hissing sound had stopped. But I didn’t see, through the page-sized hole “The Aleph” had burned, train tracks or gravel rumbling by. Instead I was viewing a sunlit park, as though I were perched in a tree overhead. It reeked of urine, but otherwise it was a pleasant scene. Two people drank coffee at a wrought-iron table. One of them was me, the other a woman in a blue dress. Not Nicole. This woman had long hair, was fashionable and tall. I looked older—I was balding and I wore a watch and clothes fitted to me—but I was reading Labyrinths. The same green train ticket now in my hand peeped out of the back of the book like a bookmark.
Quickly, the hole stitched shut, leaving behind only a faint trace of urine.
I was afraid I would never again be free of all I had seen.
Brown offered me a scholarship I couldn’t turn down. I got an easy job in Providence. Nicole stayed in Boston.
One weekend Em wanted to go to New York. I was trying to save money, but she’d lived three formative years on the Upper West Side and it was important to her to show me around. We had a fine, but sparkless weekend. Em had terrible nerves—everything upset her. I blew half my vacation budget on cab rides because she was afraid of the subways. We had time to kill near the station where we got our train. She took me to a park. We had coffees. I pulled out my book because I was done—I didn’t want to talk to her anymore. Before I got too far in the alarm on my timer buzzed, it was time to go down into the station. I stuffed the bookmark into Labyrinths and jammed the book into the bottom of my suitcase. A week later Em and I had a blowout. I hadn’t even unpacked from New York. I stuffed my other things, what she didn’t make me throw out when we moved in together, into other suitcases and boxes. That was that.
Happily, after a few sleepless nights, I was visited once more by oblivion.
“You didn’t tell me it was a philosophy book,” Nick chucked Labyrinths on my desk. I lived alone for a few years after Em but Nick, an old friend from back in grad school, needed a place to crash for a few weeks. I needed some space from Nick and his cigarettes that weekend. I took the book with me to visit friends, rode the commuter line up to Easton. “I learned a word today,” I told Joshua when he picked me up, “perspicacity.” The translator of Labyrinths must use that word ten-thousand times in the book. “Julia is pregnant,” was his reply.
every one of the faces seemed familiar to me.
Skimming the syllabus for a writing class, I saw “The Aleph” and smiled because I would know at least one story. When that assignment rolled around I dug Labyrinths out of a chest of books, flicked the green train ticket bookmark and laughed. I’ve lived in Providence for ten years. That went fast. I opened to the table of contents.
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
The Garden of Forking Paths
The Lottery in Babylon
Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote
The Circular Ruins
The Library of Babel
Funes the Memorious
The Shape of the Sword…
It went on.
I even checked the essays and the parables. “The Aleph” had disappeared.
I’d only ever owned one book by Borges and I know I’ve read “The Aleph” and I don’t know how to reconcile those two truths. I dropped myself on the black couch of the Providence house I own with Sara, my fiancée, and cracked open You Have Got to Read This. Our dog nibbled on one corner of the cover as I found the story. On the burning February morning Beatriz… I read as a hole burned through the rug between my feet. Peering through, I saw the boy riding the train to Providence. Saw Em and the coffees; smelled the urine of Manhattan. I saw Nick, who disparaged Borges, and Joshua—their son is now five. I felt dizzy. I was afraid that not a single thing on earth would ever again surprise me. Then as quickly the vertigo faded, and when I shut the book I knew, before opening it again, that “The Aleph” has vanished from its pages.
Above is the first draft of a story that’s more true than it is made up. You might appreciate it more if you read “The Aleph” by Jorge Luis Borges, which you cannot find in Labyrinths, I don’t think.
If you enjoyed, would you please like this story, and tell me what you liked (or disliked) in the comments? Sharing it with someone goes a long, long way, too. I’d love to get more people reading my work.
Read Page 257, then the Aleph (thanks for including), then Page 257 again. I *hope* everyone has found an Aleph occasionally throughout their human lives, but this caused me to consider how universal that experience may (or may not) be. Experienced boredom is not boring.
I must read 'Aleph' now. Page 257 is an awesome story. Love how smooth it flows and the concept is so unique! "You've Got to Read This".