The Librarian of Burned Books

by Brianna Labuskes

It was a strange moment in history to be a politician, when you were sending the nation’s boys to their death while enjoying steak and whiskey lunches on the taxpayers’ tab.

“Yes, I can tell you care about budgets,” Viv said, her words dripping with ice as she glanced around at the remains of a meal that could have funded the council for a month.

she said as softly as possible so that it would land that much harder.

Althea tried to imagine she was writing instead of living this scene. What would she do if she were the main character instead of the dowdy friend there simply to add contrast,

It had taken her a few years but she had realized love didn’t have to be a white wedding; it could be sharing drinks and gossip on an otherwise terrible day.

“I know real life is a lot more dismal and hopeless than a well-structured novel.

But every day that passed, she was less and less certain the world really was worth saving.

That’s how war was. Everyone had a touching story to tell, and yet because of that, it was almost like there were none.

Had this been a book she was writing, Althea would have charged into the square, stood in front of the woman, and faced down her abuser, no matter the consequences. In real life, Althea stood in shadows and watched.

Althea had been raised to trust her government, trust the people who had done right by her. She had never learned to view the world through a suspicious lens.

Hannah already felt gutted from grief, from betrayal, from a slow erosion of her faith in mankind.

“So much of this is because of fear, isn’t it? All Hitler had to do was make people afraid: There is a monster out there who will attack you if you don’t let me protect you.”

Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.

don’t think an author’s job is always to change the world,” Viv said. “I think sometimes it’s to make it more enjoyable. Even for a brief amount of time.”