THE WISDOM DISTRICT contained a public library. Of course there were no books in it anymore. That was pointless for people kept taking them out and not bringing them back. Now there were touch screens instead. Most of these were covered in sticky fingerprints for the place prided itself on bringing education to the young and the great unwashed.
It was a curious building. Long and thin so no one could get lost among the shelves back when there were books there, it had now evolved into a sort of thoroughfare of on-grid words and pictures that changed of their own accord until someone touched the screen and received a message asking what they might like to read. Or why they were not outside enjoying the sunshine like everyone else.
One curious figure watched the active screens from an alcove as the occasional seeker of knowledge sauntered by. He was so absorbed in the dancing words he forgot where he was and found himself being reminded by others.
'Why do they need so many blasted screens?' a man said, sidling up to the thoughtful figure whose beard quivered with unspoken words.
'Hmn?' Tinker Blomp said.
'I mean, one would be enough, wouldn't it? What with all them menus and sidebars and things you can drill down into.'
'Two fingers on one screen creates confusion,' came a considered reply. 'Try it.'
The man did so and got a blue death screen and a buzz for his trouble.
'Why's that then?' he asked, a little shaken. He had never been menaced by information before.
'Only one question at a time should be asked, and only one answer is available.'
'What about either or?'
'Either the one comes before its alternative.'
The man humphed at this and double-digited the screen again to make it buzz.
'The brain though can be tricked into seeing two things at once,' Tinker Blomp said, fearing library guards might appear and eject a troublesome reader as well as himself as somehow in collusion.
'How so?' and the buzzing stopped, though the staring from a couple of readers farther along the long thin space continued a while.
'I have a coin, thus,' and the Tinker held the shiny disc between finger and thumb with a flourish. He was in his element now. With a flick of a finger he set it to spinning rapidly while tilting it to catch the light above.
'You trying to hypnotise me?' the man said with a frown of uncertainty and he stepped back a bit. 'As I don't hold with that.'
'Not at all, my good man,' Blomp said politely as the disc continued its flickering gyrations. 'You need but glance at it and I promise not to wave my fingers in strange ways. See here, the numerator side and the presidential side.'
'Ha! Looks as if the president has a halo. Damned unlikely thing that,' the man said, squinting with satisfaction at the discovery.
'If there had been any books here in this library I could have held a page up to the light and read the text on both sides at the same time.'
'There's a trick.'
The coin disappeared.
'My good man,' Blomp said. 'You have cleared my mind of a fog that lingered around it.'
'Just saying, we need only the one blasted screen to read stuff on.'
'Two people need two screens. Three people need three. And so on.'
Tinker Blomp made to move away and the man, not quite finished with his idea made a grab for him. In doing so he touched a curious staff he had not noticed before. There was a blue spark and nearby screens flickered.
'Hey,' someone said. 'What just happened? Lost my bloody place!'
'No, it's still there,' Blomp said in a slightly nervous voice as he propped up the man whom he had conversed with but moments ago so he looked as if he was still conscious. 'Just wait a bit and it will pop back into view.'
'Ah,' the other said several screens away. 'There it is. Chapter Five. My favourite.'
As Tinker Blomp departed the unconscious man slumped forward so that his nose and his cheek each tried to ask the screen in front of him a question. There was another blue flash and a continued buzzing that eventually brought uniformed gentlemen running.
'Well,' one of them said as he lifted the man from the touch screen. 'Another word addict I fear.'
'Yeah. Get them all the time,' his colleague said.
'Did you see a second man here with him just now?'
They both looked around fruitlessly, then noticed another reader nearby engrossed in his touch screen. He was touching it a lot.
'Let's ask this guy.'
'Whoo-hoo! Chapter Five. Yes!'
'Let's not,' and the guards called in a medic to deal with the wordsleeper before returning to their cubicle and await the next bibliographical infraction.