Today’s story is “The Library” by Metassus. Based in the wild west of Ireland, Metassus started writing some time back as part of the "Thursday Prompt" group on Fur Affinity. His work has appeared in the Anthrocon magazine, in Fang Vol. 4, and occasionally on his printer by mistake. He is particularly keen on word-limited micro-fiction, calling them "365 Word Tales". At some point he'll have 365 of them and consider his work on earth done. You can read his writings and view his photography on furaffinity.net, or on metassus.com.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and today’s story is

“The Library” by Metassus.

Based in the wild west of Ireland, Metassus started writing some time back as part of the "Thursday Prompt" group on Fur Affinity.

His work has appeared in the Anthrocon magazine,

in Fang Vol. 4, and occasionally on his printer by mistake.

He is particularly keen on word-limited micro-fiction, calling them "365 Word Tales".

At some point he'll have 365 of them

and consider his work on earth done.

You can read his writings and view his photography on furaffinity.net,

or on metassus.com.

“The Library”

by Metassus His excitement was a ball of giddiness in the middle of his middle,

all of his whiskers popping straight out like his drawings on square-patterned pages of his science copy-book,

the scrawled glyphs of other tigers

with square heads and oddly symmetrical faces --

but it didn't matter!

Today was the day!

Mama held his paw

as they walked past the mills and over the bridge, past the roundabout with the two or three cars that always seemed to whizz in ever-spinning circles.

He had spun around it on his bike a couple of times.

If Mama saw him do that,

she would have cried in fear.

He wouldn't like that

—she was his mama:

no-one else's, and she was special.

She loved him like no other boy,

and he loved her.

When he was grown-up,

he would marry her. It was simple.

No other woman could ever be like Mama.

The road from the roundabout passed by old buildings

with tall, narrow windows.

They were cold and lofty,

not like the houses on the estate, with their

long, wide glass rooms,

letting in light and providing small tigers with light-dappled living rooms

in which they could rawl and grahgh at each other as they played on orange nylon carpets.

Lace curtains provided

a diffuse light that comforted everyone.

Nobody could see tiny predators laying in wait for unwary grown-ups to pass by their lair at the window,

and nobody ever figured out from where the startling BANG came

when they hammered the glass to make the grown-ups jump in fright.

One of Mama's friends passed by and, of course,

she had to stop and talk with her.

It wasn't fair! They only talk rubbish anyway!

All 'he said she said and he said then she said...' and stupid stuff about dumb old women who didn't like their husbands. Borrrrring!

Mrs. McAllister

always spelled words that she didn't want him to understand.

He hated that. He wasn't a baby.

He took particular delight in saying the forbidden words out loud, even though Mama would squeeze his paw in that

'stop, you're embarrassing me' way,

and get that

tight-lipped face under her scarf when Mrs. McAllister scowled down at him.

After the adults separated,

he would insist on asking Mama about the word

and she would walk just a little faster

and say that it's nothing he needed to know about.

He needed to know.

"Why does Mrs. McAllister always smell like wee-wee, Mama?" he asked,

looking back to where the older lady was attempting to cross the road by the roundabout.

His mother sighed

and told him about how women sometimes get

'weak' when they grow older and that it's not her fault

and he should have consideration for his elders ...

and she didn't stop

until he realised it was something he would have to ignore, because Mama was a little embarrassed about it,

and there was no point in having her feel that way.

If it was really important,

he knew, she would tell him.

By now, his feet were sore.

Going over here on his bicycle was fun,

but it was maybe a full mile's walk from home.

Having to pace all that distance was miserable.

Still -- and his heart began to race again --

it for a better reason than just going shopping!

The collywobbles in his belly redoubled

and he gave a moan of barely suppressed excitement.

Mama asked him if he was alright,

and whether he wanted to go back home.

"NO! I mean, no, Mama. Look! It's over there!"

She stopped on the footpath, and he stopped too,

his little paw gripping hers

Tightly. A big stone stood outside the building and he read the words aloud.

"Tiogar Library and Museum ...

Mama, what's Tiogar mean?"

She told him. The building was named after the President, she said, 'one

of our own', and he always visited town because of something to do with an election.

He let that go over his head.

They passed by the stone and walked solemnly down the sloped walkway to the entrance.

Black metal poles held a wooden canopy aloft overhead,

and the stone building looked grey and imposing to the right.

A bicycle stand was crammed with velocipedes.

Several posters inside glass frames were so clouded by dampness

that they were virtually impossible to read;

so they walked up to the red-framed doors.

Mama pulled the door outwards

and announced needlessly that they had arrived.

He loosed himself from her paw and ran in,

pushing the inner door open,

then gasped at the surrounds.

Browns and oranges were everywhere;

from the carpet tiles to the shelving.

A delicious smell of newness and wood-glue;

plastic odours and books. And so many books!

His tawny eyes widened to small golden disks

as he gaped, slack jawed,

while Mama gripped his paw again.

They walked the three or four metres to the desk

at which a pretty vixen was working.

She looked a little like his teacher,

and was doing something with little rows of cardboard tags.

She was so lost in her work that she ignored Mama until Mama coughed a little 'ahem'

to get her attention.

He didn't care about the grown-ups.

This was the best thing in the whole world and it was ...

just wow. Wow! Bigger kids came from the other side of the partition wall,

passing under a sign marked 'Adults.'

He frowned, his stripy forehead displaying a sequence of sine waves.

They were no adults!

A little self-righteously, he decided he would most certainly stay in the childrens' section.

Someone called his name

and he spun on his heel and looked at Mama.

She was smiling. The lady at the desk spoke his name again

and held out a piece of card and a pencil.

He had to write his name, she told him.

He obeyed, his tongue sticking out and to the right as he concentrated on making his letters nice and neat.

Mama tittered when the lady said something about his efforts,

but she stopped when the lady said how neat he wrote.

Mama placed a paw on the top of his head

and proudly brushed his forehead.

In a voice that was more soft than she usually spoke,

she praised him with a smile,

and he grinned back.

"Can I go look now, Mama? Please?"

She looked to the vixen, who smiled and nodded,

warning him to stay in the childrens' section.

He bounded off to the far end of the area,

running his pawfinger carefully across many rows of books.

So this is what it's all about!

There were so many!

Colours and letters were everywhere.

There was even a deep tiered well set into the floor,

smothered in comfortable brown carpet.

Two or three cubs of his own age were down there,

laughing and holding books with bright drawings on their pages.

He lusted for one of his own to hold,

with just as many images and explanations to read.

The children ignored him.

They owned the well, and he was outside it,

on the floor, not part of the group.

A young wolf looked up and stuck his tongue out.

The back of the area had a large

plate-glass window,

through which he looked into a somewhat dull green lawn.

There was no colour there,

not like his back-garden at home,

full of sweet peas and Sweet William,

pink flowers on potato plants

and the tubes of onions coming out of the ground.

This garden was dull,

a uniform green, with a red bench in the centre,

and a single door that led into the library itself.

He went to the door.

It was locked. Something,

a vague thought, entered his head,

but it would be many, many years before he would be able to rationalise that out.

For now, being seven years old was more about exploring where he could go,

and less about those places that were out of reach.

He turned to look at the bookshelf nearest the window

and slowly looked over the books,

his mind a whirl as he scanned the myriad of titles.

Remarkably, one caught his gaze,

locking him onto it.

It wasn't a word --

it was a sound. A sound in letters

that looked as peculiar as the sound the letters made in his muzzle.

He reached out and touched the spine of the book,

that first book, the book that would start in him a love for reading that would eventually carry him into places he could never dream of going

when he was just a small

seven-year old tiger cub.

Carefully, he pulled it free of the shelf

and held it tightly .

On the blue-coloured front cover was a single word.

"Moussik", it read. There was a picture of a cat on it.

He sniffed the paperish scent and beamed,

hugged the book to his chest,

then ran back to the desk to where Mama was having a chat with the vixen.

"I got one, Mama, I got one!" he yelled, to her surprise.

So soon? She and the vixen wondered how he could have chosen one book from among so many.

The vixen asked him for the book,

glancing knowingly to his mother all the time.

His heart stopped for a moment,

hoping she would not ask him to return it to its cold shelf,

where no-one would look at it for months

or years, the long-furred cat on the cover

then unable to see out to the flat green garden,

and only the single word on the spine showing.

The lady at the counter smiled

and told Mama that he had chosen an excellent story,

and one that would certainly appeal to one of his age.

He didn't quite follow,

but was happy that Mama looked pleased,

and delighted when the lady stamped the tag on the inside of the cover

and handed it back to him,

ruffling his head fur.

"C'mon, Mama! We gotta go home now!

I gotta read my library book!"

And so, he did. This was

“The Library” by Metassus,

read for you by Khaki,

your faithful fireside companion.

For more stories

you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, or on the web at thevoice.dog.

Thank you for listening

to The Voice of Dog.