Kathryn Pellicotte ‘29
Staff Writer
Angel of…. Literature?
Deep within the bowels of the Dinand stacks, where rows of shelves stand lined with dusty volumes and forgotten tomes, a literary genius resides. You may believe that the thousands of books on the thousands of shelves were written by thousands of authors, but you are mistaken. They were written by one man (or thing): the Phantom of the Library.
Yes, this mysterious creature has over a million pen names ranging from Plato and Descartes to Dante and Jeff Kinney, and he has remained in the library since its dedication in 1927. The faint rustling we hear could be the swish of his cloak, and the feeling that we are being watched is not a trick of our minds. The eerie silence that seems to press down upon us every time we venture through those suspended walkways has never been empty. The Phantom of the Library is there. You know it, I know it, and those slumbering study buddies who accidentally mistake their laptop for a pillow especially know it after hearing his mysterious voice singing to them in their sleep.
Most students have experienced the frenzy of cramming before an exam, and this, paired with a lack of sleep and a caffeine consumption large enough to kill a baby elephant, often leads to acute disillusionment and insanity. “He’s there. The Phantom of the Library is there… inside my mind”, sophomore Pipstine Guinaae fervently claimed. From this, it would be easy to conclude that the Phantom is nothing more than an illusion, a sliver of a dream, or the shadow of a nightmare. However, an anonymous testimony that was scribbled on the back of a printed out Econ problem set has provided hard evidence of the Phantom’s existence. A portion of the writing can be found below for the benefit of our esteemed readers.
“The hour was growing late and the fake candles were throwing shadows on the walls of the Levis Browsing Room. I was alone, just me and my problem set, when suddenly the lights were snuffed out by one of those overly dramatic whooshes. Then, a high pitched voice resembling that of Ebenezer Scrooge began to sing from somewhere inside the fireplace, calling me an insolent boy or something. I was obviously flattered since it was evident that whoever this ghost person was had a MAJOR crush on me. (A win’s a win… I guess) Anyways, as I started walking towards the voice in the fireplace, a hand emerged from the brick wall! Not to pat myself on the back and toot my own horn, but I felt pretty darn clever in my discovery of the entrance to the Phantom’s lair. But alas, this is where my almost-fantastical story ends. Right as I was about to take the hand of the sure to be hot ghost-man, those weird kids from the Spire barged in with their usual ruckus, and the outstretched hand melted back into the darkness and disappeared. Ughh, of course!!”
This revealing testimony offers some explanation of the strange occurrences that have been happening in Dinand. Namely, the printers running out of paper, the bathroom lights turning off on students, and the stairs changing heights to create more trippings. We do not know what else the Phantom has up his sleeve, and this uncertainty has sparked a sense of terror that has driven students to take their studies elsewhere. I, for one, have a feeling that the next target will be the chandeliers on the main level. Something about a disfigured, Parisian grandfather who raised hell in an opera house by knocking the chandelier down. It could be generational!!
Featured image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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