Burning books, todayfoundout.com
The world was in terrible disorder at that time. It was the second long year of the epidemic. There was economic collapse, widespread famine and crisis in the government of every nation. But it wasn't just politicians who were losing face and losing their heads, it was nearly all the experts and professionals still alive. Companies couldn’t maintain their work forces or the vital flow of goods. Inflation skyrocketed while markets crashed. Medical experts were at a loss to explain or alleviate the epidemic that had sprung out of a virus they’d been unable to defeat in two decades.
But this disease, unlike the lingering one, had a knack of killing its victims within a few months, covering one's body with large, black sores and dispatching it with recurrent fevers of ever-increasing intensity. It had spread around the world in a week and infected over half the world's population in its first wave. The old and the young disappeared, and the survivors were left to wear themselves away, tending to the invalids, until their own constitutions broke down enough to give access to it.
Presaging this disaster by a few years was a miscalculation on the part of the world's genetic scientists working to alleviate the blight that affected most plant life after the decay of the ozone layer. A white paste, a "Sunscreen 2000" had been developed to protect humans. But plants needed genetic alteration. A more robust and efficient chlorophyll was developed, called glaucophyll, and introduced to a host of crops against the sun's increased radiation. The introducing agent proved so effective that it quickly spread and turned all plant life across the face of the globe from green to a sort of waxy white.
This was no great tragedy. The plants still had all their life supporting qualities. Things seemed to be going well for about a year. But the new glaucophyll was not completely effective in protecting against the ever increasing ultraviolet radiation. So the skies were seeded with a permanent high cloud cover and the great white houses were built, high-tech food factories encased in glass, a double indemnity, which worked smoothly until the plague came along and made all efforts futile.
It was in these troubled times that the first anti-technology riots took place. There had already been food riots in many cities when supplies failed. Hospitals too had been raided and destroyed when rumors of withheld medicines and vaccines took wing. Rabid mobs haunted the streets looking anywhere and everywhere to unleash their pent-up rage. And so many things that could have been spared fell a victim to the anger in this quickly disintegrating society.
Jonathan had been but a year at his first post, assistant professor of history on the beautiful campus of Berkeley when the violence erupted. It wasn't the students this time. Their numbers had been sadly thinned by the plague and the grim necessities of their families. It was like a campus in wartime, nearly deserted and eerily quiet. But the professors still able carried out their daily routines and their voices still rang through the half-empty, echoing lecture halls.
An unusually cold weather front had settled over most of the country that week, which may have predisposed people to bonfires. The transportation network that supplied fuel among other things was breaking down. Power was intermittent. But the television screens glowed bright that evening all across the nation as a popular rabble-rouser and would-be prophet ignited the angers and fears of millions with one unlucky suggestion. After ranting as usual upon the failure of the scientific and educational communities to serve the people in their hour of need, he idly reflected on air that if we burned the books of these technocrats we would not only be warmer tonight but would rid the world of one more burden that had failed mankind.
This suggestion immediately grew into a hurricane of violence. Jonathan was sitting, unfortunately, in the main library that night. A student of his came over and informed him that hundreds of fires could be seen from the fourth floor of the building. So he closed his book and went up the stairs curious to see this strange sight. Indeed, a hundred fires were burning in the streets of Oakland. Another observer informed him that it was books they were burning, books of every kind, in some sort of public demonstration. Uneasy premonitions led him back to his small office in Dwinelle Hall, not with any distinct purpose in mind, except to sit in the darkness and ponder the gravity of the unfolding events.
On his way down the narrow hall he met a colleague of his, a kindly, old, emeritus professor whose office was next to his own. They discussed this sad development for a few minutes then parted and entered their respective dens. He remembered for some reason they shook hands upon parting. An hour or so later he was startled out of a gloomy reverie by the noise of a mob. To his dismay he saw from his window flames lighting the night in the direction of the main library. When he put on his coat and opened the door the first wave of angry citizens were rushing towards him, breaking the glass of the office doors along the way. Those who followed burst into each room and proceeded to throw its contents out the nearest window, making numerous heaps on the ground below, circling the building with books and broken furniture.
Others were busy outside igniting these piles with gasoline and torches. Everything happened too fast for Jonathan to react. He was caught in the first surge of bodies and rolled along the hall away from his office. This spared him from witnessing the pillage of his own small library. But it put him in full view of an even worse spectacle. He was pinned right across from his neighbor's office. The door had been kicked open and ten or more people were already inside stripping the shelves and feeding the bonfire one story below. Over the shouts of the mob he could hear its crackling roar and over their heads he could see his friend standing on his desk and clasping in his arms some precious manuscript. The brutes were reaching up and trying to steal it from him. When they couldn’t reach it they tackled his legs. He fell into their midst and out of Jonathan's view. But a moment later Jonathan heard one loud ruffian cry out: "Well, since he loved his books so much he had to go with them." The rest of that night was a blur of knocks and shoves and shouting. He somehow made it home and collapsed on his bed.
It was late afternoon when Jonathan woke up from this old nightmare. The thought of it brought a cold sweat to his brow. His memories were so vivid that they often plagued him. So he set about simple, mundane tasks for the rest of the day. He built himself a fire and warmed a meal. Then he stretched out the tarp he’d been given for a tent, from the remnants of one wall to the floor, where the books were piled, protecting them. Finally he took apart and carefully cleaned the oil lamp from the cellar. There was still some fuel in it, but he would conserve that for now. He fell asleep in the middle of his heaps of new possessions, cuddled up with them, his burro tied to a tree only a few feet away, ignorant of the strangeness of it all.
