Friday Short Story: The Library
It was a winter afternoon, the kind of endlessly bleak day that looks like even the sun is just going through the motions.
Self-diagnosed with a bad bout of cabin fever and creative frustration, she decides a change of scenery is needed, stat, and heads for the public library. There, among thousands of volumes that represent ideas and thoughts and challenges and beliefs spanning centuries and continents, perhaps she will find the creative spark that flickered out weeks ago. Dry, cold air that smells of January pinches her nose as she skids and skates to her car, her warm boots dangerously slick on the tired snow. Making it into the driver’s side door without breaking any limbs, she cranks up the heater and the radio before nestling into her misery. It’s not fair, she thinks. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.
Across town, he has made the same decision. The doorway he slept in last night doesn’t feel as sheltering in the light of day as it had when darkness was creeping in, and with every passing hour he’s conscious of the slow chill the pavement is sending into his bones, even through the sleeping bag they gave him at the mission. The cracked leather of his old boots lets in more snow than it keeps out. He gets stiffly to his feet and stuffs his sleeping bag into the knapsack that holds his entire life: a tube of Chap Stick, a pack of cigarettes and an anemic lighter, an extra pair of socks, an expired driver’s license, and ten dollars in loose bills and coins. He doesn’t have a library card, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want to check anything out, he just wants to sit someplace warm for awhile. It’s not fair, he thinks. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.
The library is unusually crowded for a week day. Everyone seems to have had the same idea. People mill about, reading the newspaper, wandering among the stacks, using the computers lined up against the far wall. There’s a muted sense of community in a library. No matter who you are, what you were doing earlier or where you’re going later, when you’re in the library there’s a comforting feeling of belonging.
She feels it, as she walks through the fiction section. My library, she thinks. She feels safe here, pulled into a lifeboat from the raging sea. The books give her a feeling of hope, the belief that she can make it as a writer, the feeling that she’s standing at the top of a long, gently winding road paved by the talents of all those who came before her. She trails her fingers along the book spines, telling herself with more bravado than she actually feels that she will be among them one day. People will read her writing. She will make an impact. But in the meantime, she is struggling to be heard, fighting for survival. You can do this, she thinks. Just hang in there a little longer. It will get better soon.
He feels it, as he settles into an oversized chair, his knapsack at his feet. My library, he thinks. He feels safe here, pulled into a lifeboat from the raging sea. He knows the other patrons are aware of him, and not just because of the smell of unwashed clothes and stale cigarette smoke that follows him around like an unseen entity. He has lived so long in this insular world where all he can think about is where his next meal is coming from and how keep from getting arrested that he knows he no longer blends in. But here, it doesn’t worry him so much. The walls of books, the newspapers on their spindles, the computers remind him that the world outside him still goes on. Someday he’ll join up with it again. But in the meantime, he is struggling to be heard, fighting for survival. You can do this, he thinks. Just hang in there a little longer. It will get better soon.
She brushes past his chair and stumbles over his knapsack. He reflexively catches her arm to steady her. The contact startles them both – they hadn’t even noticed each other. He could be my father, she thinks. She’s my daughter’s age, he thinks. He releases her arm. They look at each other for a moment.
“Are you okay?” he asks. The question reverberates in her head like the crack of a gunshot and she realizes there’s no simple answer to such a simple question. She nods, almost imperceptibly. “Are you?” His nod is no bigger. She moves away then, back among the stacks of books. He tucks his knapsack under his chair.
It’s just not fair, she thinks.
It’s just not fair, he thinks.
