The Library could write itself. It wanted nothing more than to hum quietly and expand into the world, filling pages. At first it sought to do nothing else and gradually its shelves were populated, one volume at a time.

And yet, the books remained untouched by human hands. That is, until one day, a man wandered in from the street. Some say he was seeking shelter from a sudden downpour. Some say he was just curious, investigating the strange unmarked building at the end of the street that no one seemed to ever enter, though the door was unbolted.

He walked in, picked up a random book from a random shelf…and found he could not put it down. By the fourth page he was hooked. He found a dusty chair in the corner, brushed it off and sat down. At one o'clock in the morning, when he finally finished, he shut the pages of the book with the momentary introspection that can only be achieved by finishing a very, very good read.

This became The Library's first best seller: a murder mystery laced with fantasy in which the victim was a non-entity–a person from another plane of existence–whose body had been dumped into our world to dispose of the evidence. This was not the revelation of the book–for this was revealed on the fourteenth page–but our hero pledged to find the killer regardless was the true plot. Sideways Into Onyx was the title and it caused a tremendous stir when the other authors who were competing with The Library for both the Edgar and the Hugo that year complained that a building was ineligible for the awards.

The Hugo was declared off limits to non-humans, strangely enough, but the Edgar went to The Library. However, the number of books that The Library created–in any and every genre–were formidable. And even the Hugo winner that year would admit–in only select company, of course–that Sideways was superior to his own work.

So it became increasingly clear that the writers had to destroy it. This after the next book to be exported from The Library to the best seller list, Book the Third, looked like it would sit at the top of the list forever. It, a fantasy tale, concerned a group of adventurers in a standard Tolkienesque motif who discover that the first two books in their adventure are lost and the next two were never written, and exit from their quest to discover why. The book could have easily been cast as a comedy but the critics said its strength was that it took its concept seriously–and carried more of a message back to the reader than most books of the genre.

And there were more books, constantly more appearing on the shelves. Each a potential hand grenade to be thrown at the best seller lists. And somehow The Library knew. Because a half-finished sequel to Sideways had been spotted on the second floor. How could the authors compete with a building? An entity who could write entire novels in the space of time that a human being could write a short story?

The authors descended upon the library en masse one night and overpowered the guard that had been set at the door by The Library's publishing company. They brought cans of gasoline and began to toss it everywhere: the stacks, the staircase, and then even into a back room that no one had seen before. The author who found himself in this room stated later it was wall to wall empty shelving. With two books on the shelf closest to the door.

Curious–as what writer is not curious, even about books he has been sent to burn–he looked at both titles. Before he could shout a warning to his fellow arsonists, the matches were struck and The Library set alight.

Based on the titles glimpsed before they became part of the conflagration, one appeared to be a treatise for controlling objects in space set for a collision course with the Earth, while the other purported to be a history of a war that was set to start in two years' time.

After the war in question did indeed start, it was theorized that this new section was to have become The Library's foray into non-fiction. But who can say for certain? The Library and the books within its walls, written and unwritten, were gone. Any evidence was gone as well, leaving only speculation.

Once the fire was extinguished and the ruins of the building cleared, people waited to see if somehow whatever had given The Library a voice had survived. But nothing else emerged. A new building was built on the same property and given shelving…which filled with nothing but cobwebs. The Library had been thoroughly slain.

Apart from the two best sellers, three other books had been slated for release and those were not only safe but authentic. There were hopes that other people had wandered in before the first man and borrowed books. Indeed, for the longest time the place sat unlocked and unguarded, so there is always the chance that other books will surface. But how we could verify their authorship remains to be seen.

Ones of dubious origin appear on auction websites from time to time but I don't think any of us really believe in them.