The Man Formerly of 34C

There once was a man who lived in 34C. Of all the places in the city that he could have lived, he liked 34C the best. 34C was located on the top floor of a building on the Upper East Side and was made all the more enjoyable because 34A and 34B had been empty since before the man moved in and had remained empty since. The man fancied himself the king over the entire empire of the 34th floor, though he was the quietest king that ever lived. He often spent his days alone in his apartment reading a book in the light of the single window, turning the pages furiously, his eyes set ablaze by the friction of the words that passed so rapidly beneath them.

When he was a younger man, the man of 34C would venture out to used-book stores throughout the city, looting shelves and bringing his plunder up to his apartment, lining the shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling. But as he became older, and leaving his apartment became more of a chore, he began having his books delivered to his door. He remembered the first book-shaped package arrived, wrapped in plastic and ready to be consumed. From that day, he ordered books by the dozen, ordering and ordering and all the while reading them as fast as he could.

The man of 34C read novels, new and old; he read through volumes of poetry-he knew the classics well. He read short stories and novellas-introductions and prefaces and prologues and afterwards and epigraphs and thank-yous. Books were his food and water, his shelter, his bed, his air.

As the years past, the man of 34C's apartment became quite full of books. His shelves no longer housed only single rows, but instead held legions two or three rows deep. Around the bottom of each shelf, piles began to form, and after they had formed, they grew and grew until each pile had merged with those around it and created a mountain of books, burying the base of the shelf, leaving only the top protruding like the peak of a mountain. As the piles grew, the man remained seated near the window, letting the light from the sun shine on the open pages he held in his hands. The books endowed the man of 34C with a kind of energy that allowed him to read for days on end without looking up. After three or four days had passed and the floor around him was piled with books that he had read without moving, he would close the book he had just finished, set it on the pile at his feet, and walk to the door where would be waiting five or six boxed piled on top of each other and each filled to the top with books. He would drag the boxes into the apartment, empty them , and leave them back out in the hallway to be taken away. After he had unloaded the loot he would sit for a minute and bask in the glory of the delivery before he would take the books that had piled around his feet, return them to another pile near one of the bookshelves, and, with his arms full of books, he would return once more to his seat near the window and bury himself in their pages.

Time passed and this routine continued. The bookshelves became lost; entire rooms of the apartment were filled floor to ceiling, unenterable, every inch occupied and some even spilling out of the door. In all the corners were piles, where some of the most brilliant tales of bravery and tragedy and romance, or some of the most elegant verses that language has ever seen, were lost in these eternal piles. The path from the window seat to the door was the only open space, though to make it from one to the other, the man must step on some of the books that now began to slide off the piles and cobble the path. Hundreds of thousands of books, millions of pages, and billions of words found a home in this place, and more arrived every day. Boxes continued to be piled at the door surrounded by individually wrapped stragglers shipped from rare-book vendors. The man continued to bring these packages through the door, welcoming them into his home, piling them wherever he could find the space. The corners were full, the kitchen and bedroom, packed solid, the hallway, impassible. When the latest group of boxes were emptied and placed in the living-area, he turned back to his apartment; the window that now provided the only light to the room was nearly covered, the small opening allowed light to fall only on the book that he held in his hands. It was difficult to place his body on the seat without blocking the window entirely.

Several days later, there was a knock on the door as the packages were delivered. The man of 34C rearranged himself and moved towards the door. Stepping carefully over the piles that had formed overnight on the path to the door. Outside, there were three boxes. He looked around to make sure that no one was watching. He opened the boxes there in the hallway for there was no room to bring an entire box into the apartment; like all the other boxes before, these were full, testing the structural integrity of the boxes that contained them. One by one he removed the books, embracing each in its turn, carefully, caressing it, feeling its worn pages, breathing its alluring smell, and bringing it back into his dark, cavernous apartment. He carried the last book of the boxes back to his seat, shuffling to make it through the tiny column that was barely large enough to allow him to squeeze through. The floor of the apartment strained audibly under the weight of the man and his books. The entire room had become filled; the only place left was the seat where he sat and room enough for this final book. The man of 34C took his seat, his body filling the space perfectly; the light was gone, the window was entirely packed with books. His body filled the space, and the room was finally full.

At that moment, something happened. If there was a flash or some grand gesture, nothing escaped 34C. Where the man had been, there remained nothing but books, and on the very top of the pile was a single book. Its cover was blank; it had not been ordered; no one had seen it before; no one had read it before. And no one ever heard from the man formerly of 34C.