The Corrupted Library, Ingunn Egset

The Beech forest was dense. Old mossy branches and newborn sprouts shared news and inherited knowledge. The winds of time had worked hard to collect wisdom from all corners of the world, and were conscious about making all sides of every matter available.

 

One day a man carrying an ax came by. He paused to pick out some healthy-looking beech trees, swung his ax, and cut a few of them down. The very next day he came back. But this time he was not alone. More trees were felled as the men made their way through the thick woods. 

 

The trees were then chopped up into wooden tablets where memories and tales could be carved.  Soon they had whole collections of tablets. Then paper got invented, now humans were able to collect more stories, first in rolls, and then in books. Yes, they even let the beech tree inspire the name for this new object: book. The word « bok », derived  from bók, is Old Norse for “Bøk”,  beech. Books could now be printed into several copies and it became easy to share stories. 

 

As the beech forest grew older it started to thin out. The knowledge it once held was scattered, wisdom was lost and our collective memory had mostly gone to seed.  Knowledge was erased, hidden away, falsified, or even highlighted when greedy humans found the information to serve their interests.

 

Collections of books got organised into libraries all over the world. Even the smallest villages got their own library, yes, there were even mobile libraries – libraries on boats fording fjords to promote the joy of reading.  Curious readers could dive into anything from old tales and religious texts, to cookbooks and books about healing, or prose, poetry, drama, history, psychology, and philosophy. Stories for entertainment, and fairytales for spellbound children.

 

But when wars broke out, the winners got to write the history books. Old books were replaced by new ones, the old books were burned, while the new ones told new versions of old stories. New generations got new textbooks, new students read revised editions.

 

Beyond the universities, the winds of time, carrying all knowledge, whistled as loud as they could. But it was not loud enough to be heard through the thick glass windows. 

 

And just like that, society encroached on the forest’s space, making it lose its treasures to time. In its place a new forest grew. Sky scrapers of steel, glass, and concrete. Books were replaced with shining screens, knowledge was stored on servers, hidden between films, games, and advertisements. With these new tools at their fingertips, many failed to make time for a library visit. Distracted, they did not notice the men in power taking advantage of the situation, using it to gain more power. They sharpened their pencils until words became weapons. Journalists soldiers. And newspapers became their tanks. 

 

Disoriented, humans found themselves lost in a new forest, a forest of thick, black headlines, harrowing narratives, sexual content and foul language. Lost in the midst of an endless war pouring out of their phones, newspapers, televisions, and computer screens. This new forest found so many ways to ensnare them that they weren’t the slightest bit able to understand what was really going on.

 

Journalists might not purposely lie, but will stay truer to their employer than to the story. Sales must grow, scandals must thrive. A little twist here, some neglected detail there, and the story is ready to go. Humans were confused, so much information, and only hopelessness in view!

 

The winds of time had lost their strength, they couldn’t blow through stone, steel, and glass. Every side of every story was no longer available. Half of humanity got to see one side, the other half the other side. And thus they kept arguing. Until the quarrelling ceased, the machiavellian river named Algorithm had become too wide, the current too strong. Their loud voices could not be heard on the other side.

 

But the men in power, they never stopped. They worked  silently and with great efficiency. They took ownership of everything, copyrighted the moon, the sun, the rainbow, the clouds, the mountains and the oceans, and everything living, locking it all up in their sainted digital library.

 

Only the winds of time blew freely, lonely and lost, whistling around in this vacuum of ignorance. Now and then they would shed a tear remembering the beech forest, the book collections, the happy children reading. And how they so carefully had ensured that every perspective was provided.

 

        ***

 

They are still whistling, the winds of time, day and night, collecting knowledge, hoping for wisdom again to sprout and grow into sage trees, with roots and branches reaching out to all people. 

 

Then, maybe then, when the people remember who they are and where they came from, will they be ready to let a new area of freedom and peace grow and prosper.