Rain was falling in buckets.

The few pedestrians who hadn’t yet taken cover ran for it now. Fat raindrops over-full almost to the point of bursting splattered down on the city. They seemed to consciously aim at the clothes and hair of the recently dry and stylish. I wasn’t one of those, but I got soaked anyway.

I stamped my feet as I entered the foyer of the library; took off my hat and gave myself a good shake dislodging some of the water. Beyond the front doors of the library; before the library proper was a spacious anti-chamber full of racks of pamphlets and free underground and independent newspapers, handouts and flyers of all types. I’d seen it a hundred times, having lived in this neighbourhood for years and frequented the library at least once a week for that entire time. Tonight though, something seemed out of place - different. I looked around for a moment but couldn’t place what it was. Uneasy were my thoughts as I went inside.

It was a normal crowd for a Wednesday night: several people sat reading newspapers around the messy magazine table; others hunched over in individual carrels not so much reading books as appearing to devour them. I had no agenda. I walked the circuit and ended up at the ancient civilization section. I looked through the selections and picked up a book on Egypt’s Old Kingdom period. I quickly became engrossed with the descriptions of the pharaohs of that time: 2800 - 2200 BCE. But not so undivided in my attention that I missed the strange little man in the green raincoat.

I looked up from my book and knew immediately that he was not a library regular, this was a small neighbourhood branch and most patrons I knew on sight if not by name. This man, with his gray dishevelled hair and granny glasses, was not one of them.

He stood in the middle of the open space just outside the washrooms. At first I thought he was simply waiting for a washroom door to swing open and the toilet to be available but that wasn’t his intention. He didn’t knock on either door or even place and ear to either of them to determine occupancy. He held a book in his hand and just stood motionless. Staring. What was he doing?

Then he started to change.

I can state it no plainer then that. First his face became distorted then the distortion seemed to spread to his upper body, it felt as if I was looking at something impossible and yet at the same time real and meant solely for me. Like a ...

I was suddenly somewhere else.

The sun was burning bright above me and it was hot, impossibly hot and impossibly bright. It was so bright I could barely see. It felt like electric shocks of energy were burning my retinas.

I held my hands up to my face and looked through my slightly parted fingers, this cut out the glare enough so I could see my immediate surroundings. Where the hell was I? How the hell did I get here?

My feet felt heavy and they seemed encased in something. I looked down. Sand. I was standing in sand, hot, desert sand. My feet were buried in sand up to my ankles! How was this possible ? It was Wednesday night and I was visiting the goddamned Library.

How?

This made no sense. I climbed - with difficulty - the nearest sand dune. What I saw immediately struck me dumb.

Pyramids! The Pyramids! I was in Egypt. Somehow I was in Giza Egypt.

I could see however that it was not the Giza of the present. The pyramids were in their original condition. Magnificent! Smooth sided by white marble casing stone giving them a finished, ethereal appearance that they lacked in my time. They shone in the sun. I knew from my reading that an earthquake in 1301CE shook lose the outer casing marble and that most of it was cannibalized for building materials in Cairo - many of the public buildings in that city were built from the outer finishing stones of the pyramids.

One thing was clear: Somehow, I was in the past, but how far in the past? My mind was running thoughts in a hundred directions at once. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the dry but surprisingly fresh smelling air. When I opened my eyes again I was still seeing pyramids. This wasn’t a dream.

I concentrated on the knowledge I had at hand. According to the experts, the pyramids had been finished no later then 2100 BCE but may have actually been completed much earlier, the experts weren’t certain. The outside finishing stones, casing stones, were definitely gone by 1301 CE - that was a period of at least 3400 years and depending on the actual date of completion for the pyramids may have been substantially longer. I was in there... somewhere. What was definite was that I was far in the past.

An idea came to me: the Sphinx. I must find the Sphinx.

Then I was looking at it, the recumbent lion body and man’s head. It was different, very different from the pictures I had seen. The head was larger and in much clearer detail. It gave the impression of having been freshly carved.

I knew from my reading that many archeologists believed that in the past Giza was subject to a much more complex climate. It was believed that in the distant past the sphinx had actually suffered water damage from a flood and possible tornadic activity. The limestone had eroded and repairs were effected by simply stripping the damaged stone away. This gave the head the smaller proportional appearance it has in the twenty-first century. The sphinx had literally been whittled away. These events were supposed to have happened at least 3900 years ago. This Sphinx, the one I was now looking at, showed no damage. It made no sense. I couldn’t be here, but nevertheless I was. As far as I could figure - I was at least 3900 years in the past, standing in the Egypt of 1900 BC.

My legs gave way and I dropped heavily in the sand. As I sat dumbly staring, movement caught my eye and brought me back to alert reality. People were streaming out of the base of the nearest Pyramid. I had not noticed any other people before, my awe had no doubt rendered me oblivious.

Even at a distance I could see they were looking right at me. They were coming towards me.

A group of men, tall, thin and black as coal were moving toward me. They were all dressed alike in elaborate togas and each wore a high diadem on his head. Pharaoh’s priests or body guards? Whoever they were they didn’t appear friendly. They walked through the sand at speed, carrying long nasty looking long copper coloured spears.

They were coming for me. The group of seven men were now no more then fifty feet away. They had their spears pointing straight out at me. How could I ever hope to make them understand what I was doing here - I didn’t even know myself. I spoke a language that in this reality hadn’t even developed yet.

These thoughts vanished when the lead man cocked his arm back preparing to throw his spear. My instinct was to run - but where - I was surrounded by an eternity of sand.

Then there was a weird sensation, as if the air were being torn, or stretched. I found myself back in the library standing in the same spot as before. The book on ancient Egypt was on the floor. I stood stunned for a moment. I looked at my coat so recently wet from the rain - it was dry, dry as a bone, toasted by the blistering desert sun of ancient Egypt.

I looked through the rack and saw that the strange man in the green raincoat was gone. I hurried down the aisle and ran to the front entrance and found the little man getting ready to step out into the rain. I grabbed his coat and spun him around.

"What the hell was that?" I whispered angrily.

"I’m sorry, do I know you?" Said a cultured slightly accented voice.

"Don’t give me that shit... I saw you."

He stopped when I said that and smiled.

"What were you reading?" He asked.

"What?"

"Were you reading a book when you saw me, Sir?"

"Why?"

"Please. Were you?" He pressed.

"Yes... Ancient Egypt." I answered.

"My God.... how was it?" His eyes seemed to grow behind his glasses.

"How is this possible?" Was all I could say.

"I don’t know exactly. It just happens. I can’t really control it." He said and then continued in a whisper that I thought was meant for himself. "Sometimes I go... sometimes... others around me."

"Do they always come back?" I asked, gripping his arm. He looked up at me nervously. "I’m not sure," he answered.

"You’re not sure?"

"I go into a kind of trance and when I come back whoever passively travelled usually reappears as well."

"You were gone too?"

"Sometimes. Yes."

"Where?"

"I ..." He turned his face away. It must not have been a fun trip for him either.

"Look I don’t care where you went. I want some answers. How did I go back in time and end up on a different continent"

"Sir...I..."

"Andrew. My name is Andrew Garvis. And I think you owe me a goddamned explanation. You are responsible for transporting me 4000 years in the past and almost getting me killed."

"What do you mean...?"

"Ancient Egyptians. They had long bejesus spears and were about to skewer me."

"Sorry." He offered.

"Yeah thanks, but I would much rather have some answers."

"Look, you don’t know me Andrew. You just found out about this. Okay... so...."

"Explanation. Now." I tightened my grip till I knew his arm must have hurt like hell.

"Okay. Jesus. But not here." As he said this I noticed that people coming into the library were watching our confrontation. I let go of his arm. He was right. We needed to talk but not here.

Fifteen minutes later we were sitting at a back table in Mallory’s Irish Pub.

The man, whose name I still didn’t know, sipped from his beer and stared at the table. I held my tongue and waited. I wanted to give him a chance to start when he felt ready. Every fibre in my being wanted to shake the information out of him, but I held off. I downed my whisky shot and took a good gulp of beer. He started speaking without looking up.

"This has been going on for centuries." he smiled and the smile seemed genuine, "all I can tell you is what I know, and that’s only what has happened to me."

"You mean... Are you saying there are others?"

"I think so." he said. I didn’t say anything, it would all become clear or it wouldn’t depending on what he had to say. I knew nothing about any of it. My best plan was to shut up and listen.

"My name is Castigil and I’ve lived for what amounts to two centuries." He paused to let it sink in. It wasn’t sinking very well.

"How is that possible?"

"I don’t really know myself," he said and took a sip of beer, "I have lived in this form since 1829. I believe either a spell or some curse was visited upon me. But as I say, I’m not really sure."

I didn’t believe him.

"Jesus Castigil, you’ve only had a hundred and eighty years to figure it out."

He simply shrugged. I knew I wasn’t getting the whole story but I was actually surprised at how much info he was revealing. Castigil seemed eager to talk, albeit in a guarded sort of way. Perhaps this was his first time ever speaking about all this.

"I want to die."

"Wh...?" I started to ask but he held up a hand.

"I can’t die until I have transmuted my power to someone else." He blurted, and then stood up. He seemed to be taller and younger and stronger the old man I had been sitting with moments before.

"I have been trying to find the right vessel for years. Instinct, or something... told me that libraries would be a good place to start. A lot of sympathetic energy drifting in limbo."

"Vessel." I didn’t like the sound of this.

"A vessel to take my place... I’m so tired of this." He shook his head.

"Tired of what?"

"Collecting souls."

"Collecting ...?" I felt my skin go cold.

He pointed at the book he still held in his hand. I looked at the cover.

"Hell: A concise history?" I read, then looked up at him," Why in god’s name would you want...?"

"As I said, I was turned into a vessel 180 years ago. This happened while on vacation in Avignon France." He paused for a moment and smiled his sad little smile," I never saw my wife and children again. I was fifty three at the time and I’m pretty sure I haven’t aged a day since."

"But how did it happen?"

"I met someone... who took me on a - spacial temporal transportation. From that he could see that I could travel as he did. Very few people can."

"A what... .spacial..."

"The process that transported you to the Egypt of the past - a spacial temporal transportation, that’s what I call it - STT for short."

"Who was it? Who took you."

"A man at a library. I never learned his name."

"What did he want from you?"

"To work as a conduit to transport souls. Live souls. Apparently live ones are much more coveted then the usual."

"Transport where?" I asked but already felt my skin crawl.

"To Hell."

"No... No...You are not telling me this." I liked this less and less by the second.

"Andrew, you are my replacement, just as I was his."

I wanted to run but I seemed rivetted to the spot. Then Castigil put his head back and grabbed my wrist with one hand while he held the book in his other. I screamed and tried to pull away but he was suddenly terribly strong. Then everything went black.

It was cold and dark. A cave? But it felt like standing at the edge of a vast canyon covered in cloud. I felt another presence immediately. I couldn’t tell where it was or where I was for that matter. I hoped it was Castigil but knew it wasn’t. My eyes rapidly become accustomed to the dark, much quicker then usual and my eyesight seemed hyper acute. It made no sense given the pitch black void I found myself in. Of course none of this really made any sense.

It was a cave. The scale was incredible. It was enormous. It seemed a continent of its own. In the far distance fires were burning but I knew they would be cold - there would be no warmth or comfort here. A hollowed out, burnt out star. A vision of death unblinking.

There was a tremendous rush of sound. Of movement. An assault on my ears given the complete silence only a moment before. It came from nowhere and everywhere all at once, the sound of a great beast arising, and it made me shudder. Somehow though, it was not unexpected. Perhaps deep down I had always known, known from the start that I was destined for this.

Then I heard its voice and knew all was lost.

"Welcome Collector."It said in a deep unearthly baritone that echoed through the land.

The tears that came froze to my face almost immediately. I was home.