The Midnight Library
Matt Haig

(11/21/21-11/25/21)

JN:     

       Nora Seed confided in the school librarian about her worry about her future. This conversation occurred 19 hours before Nora would decide to die. The librarian comforted her, citing the endless possibilities of things she could be. 
       (Now 27 hours before she decided to die) Nora sat on her couch, lonely and hopeless as ever. Someone rang on her door and she found it to be a man she knew. He regrettably informed her that her cat had died and was lying still out on the street. Nora found her but instead of feeling grief, envied the cat’s peacefulness (so Nora had some serious mental health issues). 
       (Now to 9 and a half hours before. The end is rapidly approaching), Nora went to String Theory, a guitar, and overall music shop, where she worked for many years. She arrived late and explained to her boss that her cat had just died. Her boss then began to talk about other possibilities for Nora and asked about her aspirations. She told of her promising career as a swimmer in high school, her philosophy degree, and a wedding she got cold feet two days before but finished by declaring she enjoyed the job. Unfortunately, her boss had already made up his mind and let Nora go. A half-hour later, she received a text from her father, who Nora believed she ruined his life, asking to speak to her. Not wanting to talk, Nora responded that she was busy and continued to aimlessly walk around town in the rain. 
       An hour later, she wound up in a newspaper store where she ran into Ravi, her brother’s best friend. They quickly got into an argument that stemmed from Nora quitting their band which could have been something big. Ravi nor Nora's brother had forgiven her for it. After he left, the owner talked to Nora, remembering Nora from her swimming days, which just depressed Nora more, so she ended the conversation as quickly as possible and left. An hour later, now 7 hours to go, Nora continued to walk aimlessly. She tried texting one of her previous best friends but received no response. Her philosophical knowledge no longer helped her at this moment, it only served to deepen her hopelessness. 
       Two hours later, she received a call from the mother of her sole piano student, asking her where she was. Nora was an hour late and feverishly apologized, but the mother informed her they were going to quit (really stacking up today). An hour later (four hours left), Nora finally made it home, and her elderly neighbor informed her he didn’t need her to pick up his medications anymore. And with that, Nora stayed inside, drank some wine, and pondered over her misfortunes. No one needed her at this point. The time went by, one hour after the other until Nora decided it would be a good time to die as she didn’t want to see the light of the following day. So near midnight, she left her brother a voicemail, apologized, and then wrote a suicide note, saying that she had all the opportunities in her life but didn’t capitalize on any so now she had nothing more to give. 
       (Now to the library at midnight (maybe roll credits)) Suddenly, Nora was in a dreamlike state on a path that led to a building. Checking her watch, she saw that it was midnight (so 00:00:00) and time stood still. Upon entering the building, she saw bookshelves as far as the eye could see and noticed that all the books were a strange green color. Some were swampy green, others emerald green, but all were green. With identical heights but differing widths, one of the books called to her, but before she opened it, a voice behind informed her to be careful. Nora turned around and immediately recognized the voice of her old school librarian, Mrs. Elm. As Mrs. Elm spoke, Nora recalled when she told Nora that her father had passed away from a sudden heart attack and held her tight until her mother came. 
       Now, Mrs. Elm was here, and naturally, the bizarre scenery entirely bewildered Nora, so Mrs. Elm explained what happened. Between life and death existed a library that housed all the possible lives someone could have lived. Outside the library was death, but only death could come to that person, not the other way around. The fact that Nora couldn’t even accomplish dying annoyed her, but by this point where she already welcomed death, she was up for anything. Mrs. Elm continued explaining that all of the books were variations of her life. The bookshelves around her began shifting until a gray book was visible. Mrs. Elm gave it to Nora but forbade her to open it until she said so. Naturally, Nora had to ask about the sole gray book and Mrs. Elm said the book was entitled The Book of Regret. Opening it, the chapters were labeled according to which of her 35 years they came from. Some were insignificant ones but many were monumental that would have changed her life entirely, such as going to study geology instead of philosophy, becoming a glaciologist, finishing a novel she started, not leaving the band with her brother, not arguing with her dad, not moving to Australia with Izzy (her previous best friend), and leaving her fiancé, Dan. Nora had fallen in love with Dan's enthusiasm about owning a bar and continued with him until he proposed. Several months before their wedding, Nora's mother passed and instead of postponing the wedding, they simply went forward with it. All the grief, uncertainty about her wedding, and the overall lack of control over her life compounded so Nora called it off.
       As she kept thinking about it, Nora started to feel all of her regrets simultaneously, and Mrs. Elm noticed this and told Nora to close the book, which made the feelings of regret fade. After Nora recovered slightly, Mrs. Elm asked her what life she would like to try. She could undo any decision and regret and live that life with each life beginning from the point she attempted suicide. If Nora enjoyed the life, then she could live in it until the end of her days. If she hated it like in her original life, then she would return to the Midnight Library. However, if Nora lost hope in living entirely, the library would dissipate and she would truly be dead. 
       Weighing her options, Nora chose to live in a life where she ended up going through her wedding with Dan, so Mrs. Elm found the book and as Nora began reading from it, she found herself being brought to this new life. She emerged onto a fancy road wearing different clothes. As could’ve been assumed, her engagement and wedding rings sat on her left hand. Several people came out of the pub and talked to her and Nora found that Dan's dream came true in this reality. She went inside the pub and found Dan. They talked some and Nora learned of their money troubles with the pub and found Dan to be slightly off. She knew that there wasn’t anything wrong with him, but something still put her off. Going outside, she found a text from Izzy regarding whale watching, which meant that Nora and Izzy had a better relationship in this reality. 
       That night, she went to her and Dan's bedroom, and they almost immediately fought about Nora not getting her dream and only focusing on Dan's (naturally Nora had no memory of the previous Nora's life so anything that Dan talked about in this reality confused her). After saying maybe they weren’t meant to be, Nora went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror as disappointment set in and she emerged back to the library. 
Nora found Mrs. Elm in a new part of the library. She was playing chess with herself and asked Nora how it was. Nora complained about Dan and went on about how she was doomed to feel the desolation in every life and just wanted it to end, but Mrs. Elm wouldn’t let her quit quite yet. After some talk, Mrs. Elm convinced Nora to go into a life where she took better care of her cat and kept him indoors. After retrieving the book, she appeared in the same life as her original life. She looked for her cat but found him dead as well (I guess even the library can’t cheat death).
       Back in the Midnight Library now, Mrs. Elm explained that the cat had an illness that led to an early grave, and only in Nora's original life did her cat live his best life. Mrs. Elm then bid Nora to open the Book of Regrets and she found any regrets concerning her cat slowly disappearing. Anger from Mrs. Elm’s trickery spread through Nora, so Nora asserted she wouldn’t try any more lives and wait for death, but Mrs. Elm explained that this would be a bland way to spend her last days. Nora relented and chose the option where she went to Australia with Izzy. 
She woke up swimming in a saltwater pool. After some laps, she came out and experienced the strange new world. She found her way to her apartment and found a weird woman living with her. She asked around and knew she wasn’t where Izzy and her planned to be. When she asked her roommate where Izzy was, Nora learned that she died in a car accident. After hearing this news, grief came, and Nora returned to the library. 
       Looking around, Mrs. Elm was back playing chess with herself. Mrs. Elm explained that just because Nora could decide the choices, she couldn’t decide the outcomes. Nora asked her why she would stay in Australia if Izzy died, and Mrs. Elmes responded that Nora was depressed and eventually simply stuck, something Nora found to be a common tendency for her (and for everyone as habits, thus comfort, die hard). For her next choice of life, Nora wanted to experience success. She wanted a life where she continued swimming and didn’t crumble under the pressure of her dad’s continuous pushing. When Nora had initially quit swimming, her relationship with her dad took a turn for the worse that never healed. Inside that timeline, she slept through the night and woke early. Immediately, she noticed her physique and fitness. 
       Searching for herself online, Nora found that she was an Olympic gold medalist for 800m freestyle and a silver medalist for other freestyle strokes. Looking at her itinerary for the day, she found she was to give a speech about success and had no idea what to do about that. She received a call from a woman named Nadia and was soon talking with her father, who had been dead for many years in her original life. As Nora trained for the Olympics, her dad stopped drinking and got healthy again. He did have an affair with another parent of an Olympic swimmer (that parent was Nadia), and Nora's mother died sometime later. After hanging up, Nora swam in a local pool to try and clear her mind of the resentment she held for her dad’s betrayal. Afterward, she met up with her brother Joe and two people who were in charge of her speech. 
       Surprisingly, Joe seemed happy to be in her presence, and Nora barely contained her shock as Joe and the two people consulted Nora. Naturally, Nora had to ask for clarification on some of it, which earned her some strange looks. As they walked, Nora was left alone with her brother in a VIP lounge, and Nora learned about Joe's life. After she retired from swimming seven years ago, he became her manager. He married a man named Ewan and seemed very happy. Nora's questions made him suspicious as she asked for stuff she should have known. Nora then learned that their mom drank a lot after the affair and had suffered from an illness in silence while Nora trained heavily for swimming far away. Checking her purse, she also realized that she took antidepressants and blamed them for her lapse in memory. A person came in to tell her it was time for the speech, and Nora planned to wing it. In the auditorium, someone spoke to her about her accident in Portugal (probably something regarding her antidepressants). Following the opening speech, Nora made her way to the stage and talked about a tree of life (a common theological idea) where everyone starts at the root and blossoms into a tree with infinite lives but is only aware of the one branch in which they live. She then spouted some lessons that Mrs. Elm taught her but unfortunately began talking about how bad her life was in all her lifetimes and ended up back in the library (I thought this life was impressive despite its several flaws, but obviously Nora felt differently). 
       She found Mrs. Elm at a computer, but when Nora tried to talk to her, she saw her staring at the computer. Finally, Nora woke her up from whatever kind of trance she was in, and Mrs. Elm explained that there was a glitch, which could be due to Nora's original body dying. Nora was confused but suddenly thought back to swimming, and the thought of death concerned her, and just because of that thought, everything was back to normal. After a short talk, Nora decided that her next life would involve pursuing being a glaciologist and undergoing research in the Arctic Circle. 
       In that life, she awoke on a bed in a boat. A couple of feet away was her apparent roommate named Ingrid, who had chosen to come to this research mission in Svalbard, an archipelago north of Finland, so that she could escape the grief of her deceased significant other. Still hungover from the previous night, Nora walked to the dining hall and found seventeen other people. Sitting down alone, a man named Hugo approached her, introduced himself, and praised one of her glacier research papers. Nora learned that they had been on this journey for three days and that she had drawn the short straw to become the spotter for the day (which she had no idea what that meant). As the research team prepared for the day, Nora learned that being a spotter meant she had to stay on the lookout for polar bears and if she found one, to send a flare and bang a pan to signal her team and attempt to scare off the bear, respectively. If the loud noise failed to scare it off, she had a rifle. Not knowing how long she would stay there, Nora spent the first hour finding nothing but enjoying the connection with nature. She wondered why this physical discomfort wasn’t enough to bring her back to the library but she eventually knew that she appreciated the adventure regardless. 
       She thought back to a conversation with Ash, the man who told her that her cat died, about the loneliness caused by the false connection given by social media when out of nowhere a walrus jumped onto her glacier. While scared, Nora stood her ground and after a stare-down with the walrus, it left. As time continued, she heard her team approach her and then leave, conducting their research. Then, as she waited and endured the cold, she heard another splash and saw a large figure slowly coming toward her. The polar bear got on all fours (check online to picture this ten-foot behemoth of a creature) and then crawled to Nora faster and faster. Frozen in inaction, all Nora could think about was that she didn’t want to die. She even tried to return to the library but that failed. Eventually, she gained the courage to fire the flare and began banging the pan as she knew she wouldn’t have enough time to fire the rifle. Fortunately, the polar bear slowed when Nora began banging the pan and eventually left after hearing Nora's crew coming. 
       Back at the camp, Nora was in shock, not from her near chomp, but from her realization that she wanted to live. She felt proud to be part of the frontline that was discovering the changes occurring to the Earth and being part of the efforts to protect it. Thinking about her family, she thought that she was destined to fail as much of her family before had but she realized that failing under unrealistic expectations was the problem. Now, however, Nora was doing her part in helping the Earth and had a purpose: studying the rate of glacial melting among other things. Back at the base camp, Nora was congratulated as some sort of hero for the bear incident. Later on, as she walked back to her room, Hugo came up to her and told her he knew that she wasn’t the same person as the day before. Nora brushed it off but Hugo insisted, saying that she had improvised everything today. She kept denying it until he said that he had been in this life for five days and had been in many lives for long periods and to meet him soon to discuss it (that’s a shift. Changes the entire concept from something that could’ve been entirely in Nora's head as some unique dream to a real thing).
       (Now we go from a philosophical view of the Midnight Library to a more science-fictional view) Hugo talked about his own experience, what he called shifting between worlds. Instead of a library, he went to a video store, and instead of a librarian, Hugo saw his uncle. In his experience with around 300 lives thus far, he’s talked with several shifters and specifically one physicist, who spoke of a quantum realm where Hugo and Nora were both dead and alive simultaneously (Schrödinger's cat way) and for this reason, could travel between the multiverse that contained their infinite lives occurring simultaneously. Through a religious view, the librarian and uncle could be God, and through a non-religious view, the librarian and uncle could be a manifestation of the mind to dumb the impossible situation into one that it could begin to comprehend. Nora asked about what happened when shifters left their lives and Hugo explained that they filled in the gaps but experienced slight amnesia and a feeling of being out of it. Most of these shifters were in their 30s, 40s, and 50s (mid-life crisis age) and had deep regrets in their lives. 
       Hugo loved being able to try out a bunch of lives and this current life was the longest he stayed in one life. Nora was worried about disappearing for good if she didn’t choose a life and stick with it quickly, but Hugo did not share this worry, as if he died, he died. After some shared philosophical talk, Nora kissed Hugo. They went back to his room but halfway through the act, she began to have some existentialist thoughts and after feeling that Hugo was detached from the moment, found herself detached from that reality. Back with Mrs. Elm, Nora asked her who she truly was but gained from it. Mrs. Elm complimented her on her work to make the Book of Regrets lighter but warned her to choose her lives carefully as she had a limited number until the Midnight Library itself ceases to exist. Nora knew what life she wanted to try next, one with music. 
       Immediately she felt the rush of adrenaline and sweated profusely. Looking around, she saw Ravi with his shirt off, looking like a true rockstar. They just finished the main act for a real stadium and were about to do an encore. She asked where Joe was, and Ravi responded that he was doing some foreign affairs, which told Nora that he still was in the band but not actively playing. After noticing several other unknown musicians in their band, she convinced them to perform a song that she knew. As the curtains drew, Nora looked out into the crowd, and while she couldn’t see them due to the lights, she could hear them and feel her presence, which filled her with exhilaration. After performing the song, the crowd went wild, and even though Ravi told her she should do another song, Nora didn’t know the song so she ended the concert. Doing a quick search of herself in this life, found that she had eleven million Instagram followers, and all of her pictures were professionally taken. Her manager, Joanna, came in to remind her of her busy touring schedule and a podcast that she would need to participate in that night. Before she would, however, she got a video call from a man named Ryan Bailey, Nora's movie celebrity crush. Nora learned that Ryan was Nora's ex and she had broken it off with him, and he was checking in (he didn’t seem to be the most intelligent type of movie star). 
       Several people then led Nora to the podcast, which Nora was entirely unprepared for as she knew nothing about anything in this life. She first walked through a crowd of people and felt the power of fame as she signed countless autographs before Joana led her inside. There, she met the man she would be doing the podcast with, and Joana led them to Nora's suite. As the interview began, Joanna helped out with some of the questions until Nora felt comfortable enough to improvise. She talked of her troubles and how she may wish for a different life at times, for a life where she was constantly happy, but came to realize the impossibility of that yearning. After a housing question, Nora heard something regarding Joe not being in the band anymore so Nora interjected, needing to know why. What she learned horrified her. Joe had died of an overdose a couple of years back. 
       After the initial shock, Nora went to Ravi to ask what he meant when he said that Joe was dealing with affairs, and Ravi told her that he thought she meant Joanna. And just like that, Nora returned to the library. Screaming at Mrs. Elm, Nora exclaimed that she was done with going through lives. The library started shaking until Nora took it back and apologized. Ravi reminded her of how she still wanted to keep going and made her recall a day that she crossed a freezing river. During a party, Nora had drunk way too much and said she could swim a river, so Ravi challenged her to do it. As Nora recalled this, half the library turned into that memory. She watched herself swim across the lake and back and slowly climb out with slight hypothermia. Nora knew that she had been sick for weeks from swallowing the dirty water. At this point, Mrs. Elm helped Nora to realize that all of her choices before had been to follow dreams that weren’t hers and that she should choose lives with less large-scale changes.
       With a brief philosophical conversation about chess and the endless possibilities that can occur after every single move (chess seems to be used often as a basis for philosophical thoughts). This time, Nora decided to live a life where she worked at an animal shelter. Waking up in this new life, Nora went to the animal shelter. She found it easy to integrate into this life as she was told what to do, and everyone had name tags. She spent her morning walking and taking care of rescues. During lunch, a kind man named Dylan sat next to her and put his arm around her. Unsurprisingly, that initially disturbed Nora until she realized that he was her boyfriend. They talked some, and he booked a spot at a restaurant for the night. During this, she knew that she liked him for how pure he seemed. On the walk to the restaurant, Nora asked Dylan if he believed in parallel universes and if he would want to change his life. Dylan believed in the former but wouldn’t want to change his life as even though he wanted to be a veterinarian and couldn’t, he was happy nonetheless.
       At the Mexican restaurant, Nora recalled how she and Dan had been here several years back in her original life and how he was rude to the waiter (red flag unless he’s doing it for you). Over dinner, Dylan and Nora talked about how Dylan remembered Nora from school and how she spent a lot of time with Mrs. Elm, who was still alive in this life. Following dinner, they returned to Dylan's home to watch a movie. His house smelled like dogs, and everything inside revolved around the multitude of dogs he had. That night as she watched a movie, she knew that this life wasn’t for her so she said goodbye to the dog that was laying on her and returned to the library. During Nora's dinner with Dylan, she had a bottle of wine so decided to try a life where she owned a vineyard, and Mrs. Elm found the life to match that. In her new life, Nora married a Mexican-American man, and they owned a large vineyard and gave hourly tours of it. That night, she stayed under the stars and slowly vanished from the life. She had no reason not to enjoy that life but simply yearned to try more lives, so that’s what she did. 
       She experienced every life she could imagine and sometimes stayed for minutes, other times for weeks. She was a mother in some, married in some, and alone in some. She even met Hugo again, and Nora told him that she had begun to lose her sense of self as she wasn’t grounded anywhere. Hugo responded that he simply enjoyed jumping from life to life, and before the conversation could continue, he left. After all of these lives where she experienced everything and felt everything, she realized that misery didn’t come from feeling miserable. It came from believing that no way existed to escape feeling miserable (the belief that nothing will improve). 
       Returning to the library, the lights were off, and Mrs. Elm immediately sensed that Nora's will to live was faltering. Mrs. Elm informed her that she was forgetting her regrets, and Nora thought about how other than Mrs. Elm, Ash, the man who helped Nora grieve over her cat, was only the other person who showed Nora true kindness. So for her next life, Nora chose to be in one where she had said yes to Ash's request for coffee which she initially said no to because she was with Dan. In this new life, she awoke in the wee hours of the morning and found herself extremely tired. With Ash next to her, Nora decided to go downstairs to see what this life contained when she ran into her four-year-old daughter. She told Nora that she had a nightmare and made Nora come with her to her room. Nora comforted her the best she could but still felt extremely uneasy about the whole situation but couldn’t help but feel love for her. As a way to take her daughter’s mind off the nightmares, Nora (smartly) played a game that involved Nora asking simple questions that her daughter knew, including her name. Through a series of simple questions, Nora learned that the girl’s name was Molly, that they had a Labrador named Plato, that Nora previously taught philosophy at Cambridge University but stopped to write a book, that they lived in Cambridge, Nora spoke often and amicably to Joe, who also married Ewan (the same man he married in a previous life), and that Nora and Ash, who were married, loved each and didn’t shout, except when Nora got tired. 
       Eventually, Molly fell asleep, and Nora fell asleep right next to her. She woke several hours later to Plato licking her face and heard Ash coming down the stairs. He apologized for her having to take care of Molly the previous night and told her he was going for a run, dropping off Molly at daycare, and then going to work at noon, which gave time for Nora to look around the house. She discovered that she had lots of philosophical books and was currently working on a book regarding Henry David Thoreau and his legacy (sounds picture perfect for Nina). In the medicine cabinet, she didn’t find any antidepressants which made her feel positive about this life. From all this, Nora deduced that she quite liked this life and thought it was almost too good. 
       The days passed, and Nora kept staying in this life. She had slip-ups here and there which Ash commented on and asked if she needed to see a doctor, but Nora always passed them off as nothing or simple forgetfulness. When Ash worked, Nora would continue her work or spend time with Molly when she wasn’t at daycare. One night, Nora had to tell Ash the truth, but he accepted her for what it is (not fully grasping what Nora was saying, but it didn’t matter for Ash, as she was still the person he loved and married). Nora remembered that Mrs. Elm said that if Nora chose this life, she would gain all of the memories of the old Nora but she didn’t know how or when this would occur. 
       One day when Molly and Ash were both free, they all took a trip to see Joe and Ewan. In this life, Joe worked as a sound engineer and was doing very well. During one conversation with Joe, Nora asked out of the blue if he held a grudge against her for not continuing in the band. He didn’t in the slightest and even apologized for not understanding the reality of Nora's mental illness at the time.
       As the weeks went by, Nora began to remember aspects of this life, and her slip-ups occurred less and less. One day, Molly rode her tricycle around and fell, hurting herself. Nora comforted, and as she did that, she realized the root of her misery in her original life: the lack of love. After her cat died, Nora had no one that loved her, and she loved no one. In this life, Nora had a daughter, Joe, Ash, and several friends. However, Nora began to cry knowing that she had stepped in halfway into this life and didn’t truly deserve this. Later that day, Nora decided to drive to see Mrs. Elm but learned that she died several weeks ago. At the nursing home, she saw Mr. Banerjee, who was her neighbor in her original life, who told her he didn’t need her to pick up his meds anymore. Walking home, she passed by her home in the root life and saw her piano student being arrested. Thinking back on this, she realized that his piano lessons had been monumental for him and stopped him from getting into trouble. She could feel the life slowly slipping from her and told herself over and over that this was the life for her. She passed by String Theory and saw a note that it closed several months back. Continuing to walk home, she kept trying to reassure herself despite knowing the inevitable was coming. Running home now, she found Ash and Molly in the backyard and told them how much she loved them. She knew that they would be just fine with the other version of herself, and with that, she left this life and returned to the library. 
       With a loud “No,” she found Mrs. Elm furiously typing away at a computer before it shattered. Mrs. Elm told her that the library was going to dissolve. Confused, Nora wanted to know more, and Mrs. Elm explained that she returned from that life because she knew it wasn’t the right life and now the library was falling apart not because Nora wanted to die, but because she wanted to live. While she explained this, sparks began flying and a book caught on fire. Now underneath a table to protect from falling objects, Mrs. Elm continued explaining the situation and demonstrated this by pointing out Nora's watch, which began to continue past midnight. Mrs. Elm showed Nora the location of the only book that wouldn’t be burned. So Nora went to grab it but got trapped near it. With Mrs. Elm's encouragement and Nora's now impassioned need to live, Nora made it to the book and found it empty. She used a pen to begin writing in it and eventually wrote the right phrase, “I am alive,” and the Midnight Library disintegrated (a somewhat predictable ending that Nora would end up in her original life, but to be fair, I thought it would be much more voluntary). 
       Returning to her original life, Nora immediately threw up and barely got herself outside, asking for help. Mr. Banerjee answered her plea and called an ambulance. Awakening in the hospital, she answered countless questions regarding her attempted suicide. When given a moment alone, she deleted her suicide note on social media and replaced it with the things she learned. Joe then came in, as he had booked a train as soon as he heard the news. After apologizing for not being there for her and citing the alcohol addiction that he’s been dealing with, they made up. Joe told her about becoming a sound engineer and about a cute guy named Ewan, which Nora suggested he pursue. Nora also received a text from Izzy saying that she planned to come home from Australia for good. Smiling on her way home, Nora thanked Mr. Banerjee for everything he did for her and received a heartwarming smile in return. 
       That night, she realized that even though nothing externally was different, her mindset about life had changed entirely, and her realization of all of the possibilities gave her hope for the future. Plus, she received a call from the mother of the piano student that they would continue taking lessons from her. Lastly, Nora visited Mrs. Elm, the real Mrs. Elm, and played chess with her. Nora told her how she was a piano teacher, and while saying this, saw Dylan outside walking his dog. Mrs. Elm admitted that she had many regrets in her life, and Nora gave her the same speech that Mrs. Elm had given her in the library. (Essentially, the speech boiled down to the fact that life has endless possibilities, and no one can know the outcomes until we live it. And that’s the end of this heartfelt tale about gratitude for what you have and knowing that the future can always be brighter. Thanks for reading and take care.)