Everyday Canvas

Libraries in Film and Fiction—and—Antique Hard Drive

A while ago, Book Riot had a feature article titled, 16 Great Library Scenes in Film. Starting with Shirley Jones singing on top of a table in Music Man, it takes on the library at Hogwarts in Harry Potter, the library in The Shawshank Redemption, and several others.

Being of small mind, my favorite library in film is the Beast’s library in Beauty and the Beast, although it wasn’t featured in the said article.

Yet, all this made me think. Although, I absolutely adore libraries, I couldn’t remember ever putting them in any piece of fiction I have written, except maybe one. And to think libraries have been around for a long time…

Even the ancient civilizations knew their importance. In known history, as far as six thousand years ago, they existed in Egypt. A small one of them --the first, maybe-- was founded by Ptolemy, which evolved into the Alexandrian Library.

Coming back to the libraries in films and fiction, their true value isn’t emphasized enough. Most of the time, they are just a setting for positive or negative give-and-take between the characters. What if a library would be the only setting with the emphasis of the plot on books or a certain book? Something to think about when I attempt to write fiction.

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Prompt: The year is 2214 and your computer's dusty hard drive shows up at an antique store. Write a note to the buyer what they will find in there.

The force of myth is irresistible, and as irresistible as this prompt as a myth is, I don’t know which of my computers’ and laptops’ hard drives will end up in that antique store, in 2214. Since I won’t be around then, all those hard drives of the computers I broke will probably be complaining about me behind my back, for messing up their registries and forcing them to become unusable and unreadable. But that doesn’t surprise me; if they were that great moral beings as hard drives, they wouldn’t conk on me in the first place, would they!

Thus, unfortunately, what they have on them will be messed and the DOS of my last one will say in a black note:

"To the Buyer,

So you think you've found a treasure, in me. No way, José!

Continuous installing and uninstalling and millions of wrong clicks did this to me. Launch screen is down in the dumps. Not any rebooting, even tri-booting will make me come alive. Any kind of restoring is impossible, and the cursor is in its grave, far gone and decomposed.

My soul, therefore, has been led through the pearly gates, a very long time ago. The universe is not letting anyone mess with me anymore, as I have already suffered through a lot of cruel and unjust punishment, in the hands of my one and only owner two centuries ago.

There! You've been told. Take it or leave it. Your problem!”