The Great Library of Alexandria

You arrive at a harbour in the evening, when the light is going gold and the sea wind is moving up through the streets. Inside the cool halls, thousands of scrolls lie in their niches, and scribes copy them by hand, one careful line at a time. You learn how papyrus was pressed from river reeds, how ink was made from soot, how the first catalogue was written, and how a man measured the whole earth from the length of a shadow. Then the lamps are lit, and the work is set down.

The ending, given away now, per house rules: let your breathing go slow, and slow, and slower. There is nothing else to wait for, which is the point.

The first minute

Wherever you are as you listen to this, whatever kind of day it has been, you can let it come to an end now. It is over. It asks nothing more of you. Let your shoulders sink down, away from your ears. Let the surface beneath you take your weight completely. There is nothing left for you to carry tonight. Let your hands grow soft. Let your breathing slow, all on its own. There is nothing here to watch for. Nothing to decide. Nothing you will need to remember in the morning. Tonight we are going to walk, very slowly,…

Why this one works at night

Nothing here is urgent and nothing needs remembering. Only scribes at their tables, copying one careful line at a time. The pace is slow, unhurried, and the whole of it is warm, dusty, lamplit. Nothing in it asks to be followed closely, which is what makes it easy to let go of.

“…Hall after hall, in the cool dark, in two buildings now, all of it written by hand, one line at a time—”

The kind of sentence people fall asleep during