The Library

Arthur always knew that life is a book. This simple metaphor became not a consolation for him, but a guide to action. He was not merely a character, but the Author, and he treated his role with the utmost seriousness.

Every day of his was a carefully calibrated page. He didn't just eat breakfast—he created the exposition for the new day. He didn't fall in love—he inscribed into the narrative a chapter about a great passion, avoiding cheap melodrama. His career was not a series of accidents, but a masterfully constructed rising action culminating in his own business. He despised plot holes—senseless quarrels, empty promises, wasted hours. His dialogues were honed, his actions motivated.

He strove to write not just a good life, but a bestseller. A masterpiece that, after death, would take a worthy place on the shelves of the World Library. The thought of this library was his guiding star. He imagined endless shelves where every volume was someone's destiny. And he was confident that his book, in a sturdy leather binding, would stand out. It would be taken from the shelf to be studied as an example of a flawless plot.

But one day, his authorial confidence showed its first crack. The idea for a unique startup, which he had been nurturing for months, was suddenly realized by an unknown company on the other side of the world. And it wasn't even the coincidences that frightened him, but the eerie sensation that his own thoughts had been overheard, stolen, copied right out of his head.

Later, while Arthur was driving along his usual route, he felt an irrational, almost panic-stricken desire to turn onto an unfamiliar side street. As a true author, he suppressed this foolish impulse, which violated the logic of the chapter "An Ordinary Tuesday". The next day, he learned that a terrible accident had occurred at that turnoff.

A cold horror seized him, forcing him to wonder: is he really the author? Or is someone invisible constantly "editing" his life, tossing in their own plot twists?

To prove his power over the text, he decided on an act of absolute authorial arbitrariness. On the day of his fortieth birthday, in the midst of a carefully planned celebration that was supposed to be the chapter "Triumph and Maturity," Arthur silently walked out of the restaurant. He drove to the nearest convenience store, bought a cheap canvas and paints, and in his impeccable living room spent the whole night painting, splashing a chaotic, furious abstraction onto the canvas. This was something alien to his calibrated nature, like a blot on a perfectly written page. 

In the morning, looking at the frozen riot of colors, he felt a heady relief. "I wrote this," he whispered. "Only I".

He lived his life to the end, trying not to notice strange coincidences and inexplicable impulses anymore. He brought his story to a logical finale—a quiet old age surrounded by the fruits of his labors. The final period was placed.

With his last breath, he found himself where he had strived to be all his life. The endless corridors of the library stretched into eternity; the air smelled of dust and wisdom. He walked past shelves titled "The Age of Great Discoveries," "The Century of Disappointments." And then, he found his shelf, his book. A thick volume in a dark blue binding with the laconic gold inscription: "Arthur".

His hands trembled slightly with anticipation. However, before opening the volume, he noticed a small mark made by the Librarian's hand on the spine. It defined the book's place in the catalog and its genre: "Draft".

Icy horror gripped him. Disbelieving his eyes, he jerked the book open, hoping to see his neat, orderly lines: the chapter on first love, on building the house, on triumph... But the pages were virginally blank. His great history, his calibrated dialogues, his meanings—they were not there. The book was empty.

Only on the last page was a single sentence written out, explaining the Librarian's harsh verdict:

"A book written exclusively for oneself cannot be read, and therefore is returned to the author for rewriting".