jdcollins. is the author of IF ALL MEN WERE ANGELS the dickenesque story of change and rigidity at the dawn of the computor age. Life did change. Was it for the better? Read IF ALL MEN WERE ANGELS Available through Denlingers, quality Books since 1927.

The official lounged in his chair unimpressed.

"Out of the question," the official shook his head with disinterest. Yet he made no more toward the keys strewn across his desk, the keys to the Enclave.

In the Enclave, our Garden of Eden on a gentle hilltop over looking the city, often in the nice weather, my perambulations often brought me to the wrought iron fence which marked off our Enclave from the bustling city below. As I stood by the demarcation, a friendly hand grabbed my shoulder and took me by surprise. "Bounds", my friend smiled, "all life has its limits".

I may have been thinking of that interchange years later when I stood defiantly before the official in the city.

"It's a question," the official declared with the fiery anger in his eyes and a biting acid on his tongue, "it's a question - - " the official paused to consider his words, "of bounds!" The official glared at me and dismissed me with a contemptuous wave of hand and an imperious fluttering of his loosened sleeves stirring the air as if they were flowing robes of state.

Yet I stood firm carefully eyeing his keys, the keys to a kingdom greater than the mind could imagine. Yet even in a so powerful kingdom, The Enclave itself, I had learned, everything was a questions of bounds.

On its hill overlooking the city, the Enclave preserved a simple way of life through its timelessness. Often I would find myself working beside my friend. "Prepare the earth in the spring," my friend leaned on his hoe, "tend the fragile vines in the summer, reap the fruits in the fall, a rotation ordained by the bounds of the seasons, always obedient to their command."

The simplicity of the Enclave afforded few simple pleasures. The Enclaves walls of wrought iron fences still hold me by a mystical bound. My friend has once told me, "these ramparts were not forged as chains and sealed as locks, but are sustained by their will."

"Are you still there?" groaned the official as he looked over some papers on his desk held down by those keys he chose to ignore.

Yes I was still in the Enclave bound by its simple rote, preparing the earth in spring, tending vines in summer, harvesting in autumn. "Yet," my friend declared as we looked beyond the wrought iron fence at the city growing toward us, "the simple pleasure of creeping through our quiet gardens lost in the pathways of our own thoughts is the greatest reward for our labors."

"Do you think this is the public library?" the official grunted. "Do you think you can barge in here whenever you please?"

In the early days in the Enclave, I toured the world of thought and mediation through the twisted paths of the Enclave ignoring the weather, extreme heat, cold and violent storms.

My friend suggested, "We do have a small room in the cellar. We call it "The library", but it's just a few chairs around a rickety table. Come try it out." His voice sounded enticing as if he offered the hospitality of a mansion. And so the progression of seasons continued with pensive perambulations in the good weather and a resolve to visit to library on the very next dreary day.

"You have" the official grumbled, "exceeded your welcome." The official pointed a finger at me. "You're entirely out of bounds"

The Enclave though subjected to rules and contained by a perimeter fence of wrought iron was seemingly unbounded by time. Seasons devolved or decayed into the next. I can't say how many seasons had passed before my passion for meditation wore thin in inclement weather and I accepted my friend's invitation to this library.

I crept down the cellar steps past the accumulated records of many ages, the Enclave had seen, into a room light by a dim light dangling from the ceiling. At a table my friend pointed to two hand crafted book cases. "The shelves contain books never read beyond the bounds of the Enclave," my friend declared.

The official snorted with anger. "What are you waiting for?"

I looked up at volumes that ranged from simple notebooks to heavy tomes kept by scribes. "You can read," my friend boasted with eyes brighter then the dangling lamp above, "thoughts sublime, inane rantings, miserable attempts at poetry, exquisite mathematics or mere doodling and keep a journal yourself."

I walked to the shelves and picked out a book and turned to my friend.

"But not on that shelf. That shelf," my friend explained, "is for those who don't want their thoughts read by another."

"And they just leave the book," I juggled the book to make the point, "in open view."

"Correct, we respect their right to keep the thought to themselves, if that is what they choose."

"I have told you," the official thundered, "there is nothing of value left in that old monstrosity on the hill. Nothing left worth saving, even for torching. I expect my determination to be respected."

We in the Enclave watched as the city grew around and engulfed the Enclave. Looking at the buildings sprouting just beyond our wrought iron walls, my friend grunted, "Maybe they'll just forget we're here." The hopefulness in his voice had turned into a sour tone.

"Or the bounds established will be respected." I answered.

"Cities do not work like libraries organized around improvized tables," my friend sighed as he hobbled away.

I was glad my friend had passed away before the key to the wrought iron barrier was seized and official mandates were presented to those remaining in the Enclave to quit.

The Enclave was swallowed whole; yet I alone had gone out to make demand for the preservation of the library.

"There is nothing there but dust and worse than dust," the official glared, "but if you want the books go back and take them." The official contemptuously threw me the keys.