Exploration

I have done what I feared I would never do again. As of yesterday afternoon I have left the Library to see a bit of the world. I had no pressing tasks for the Librarian, and he has never begrudged me some time outside. It is my own fear that has kept me from leaving. I remember almost nothing of my time before the Library, but I know that something horrible happened.

I do not exactly remember the emotions from before, but there is an echo of fear and loss that I can remember as though it happened to someone else. This I expect was left to me as a reminder of why I chose this path. When I was younger, I could ignore this warning and allow my curiosity to entice me outside, but I do not believe I had done so for a century before yesterday. A lot has changed in that time. I am not uninformed of these changes, of course, but all the same it is a very different thing to know of planes and cars and other such dramatic developments than it is to see them first hand.

This time is fascinating, so many people packed together everywhere, so many machines everywhere. Computers I am obviously familiar with, we have had them in the Library for a while. Cars I saw before, though of course they were slower and there were far fewer of them. Airplanes I had never seen. Skyscrapers, highways, the dizzying array of shops and restaurants, all of those are new to me, at least in their current form.

The stares, those are not new. Even now, in an era so supposedly enlightened, the looks I get for wearing the clothing of my former faith, my former culture, those are all the same. The suspicion, the disgust, the hatred, the fear. But stares cannot hurt me with the Librarian to protect me from any serious harm, so I ignored them.

For now I have procured a hotel room. I could have gone home, I suppose. I could even have left again in the morning, but I know that if I leave I may not have the courage to return for another hundred years.