The Library

by Bella Osborne

My name is Tom Harris and I am invisible. Not actually invisible – that would make me interesting and I’m not. I’m the person others find easy to forget. The one who is lost in the crowd.

She was getting sick of psychological thrillers that told you you’d never see the big twist coming when invariably she could spot it like a pink striped cow in a field of sheep.

overflowing. Only recently had she found she had to hunt down things to do rather than it coming to her freely.

Even if they weren’t the most exciting bunch they still had something to say, as did she, but Maggie had found she increasingly had no one to say it to.

Her thoughts were on what to cook for tea. She had some leftover cottage pie but she didn’t fancy that. Maybe she’d have cheese on toast. She liked cheese on toast. The only downside was that it was quick and what Maggie needed was things that filled up her time.

She’d never been one for thinking through the consequences of her actions. Always a jump and then work out where to land sort of person.

The newspapers in the library told of impending doom on most fronts – environmentally, socially and economically. A society unsatisfied with its lot but not prepared to make the effort to fix it.

Loneliness had crept up on her like damp seeping into her soul. She often thought about all the times in her life when she had wished for more time and now here she was with oodles of the stuff stretching out before her like it had all been saved up and paid with interest when she needed it least.

All that was left were shadows of happiness that had lingered briefly before disappearing like smoke in the breeze.

Reading was her other escape. Another world she could step into and be surrounded by characters brought to life on the page. She could meet untold people and live a thousand exciting lives through the pages. It was her solace and always had been ever since she was a child. It had helped her in difficult times – of which she had experienced many. And now reading helped ease the lack of human contact.

Most of all Maggie missed the hugs. It was a peculiar quirk of polite modern society that without a partner or offspring in your life you were denied that one key comfort that humans require – the need for physical contact.

An embrace can be on many different levels but the basic sensation of emotional and physical warmth given freely by another is most n...

If she’d realised the last time she was hugged was significant she would have paid more attention, committed it to memory so she could recall the sensations at will for the many times since, when...

She loved the heater that hit you with a blast of hot air as you walked in. Like a warm hug – or at least the closest Maggie got to one.

Living in a hostel in her twenties had been her real low point. Despite all the people and noise in the hostel she’d never felt as alone as she had done at that point in her life.

There was something oddly isolating about being surrounded by people and yet completely alone.

‘What do you do now?’ he asked. Oh what a question that was. If she were to answer it honestly would he be shocked? I spend my time desperately trying to fill my day until one morning I don’t wake up.

Living alone had rubbed some of the fun out of her way of life and she needed to find it again.

Maggie walked into the library and noted the heads that cocked at her outfit. It felt good. She’d missed that sensation.

If this was the prize you got for working forty-hour weeks for years and years I didn’t want it.

‘Breathe in peace and tranquillity. Hold it. Breathe out negativity and stress.’

‘We often think of the oddest, most irrelevant things, at difficult times. We seek out the little things we can cope with while we process the things we can’t.’

It was a curse of being older, some afternoons she would be beyond tired but two in the morning she’d be bright as a button.

It wasn’t like she was planning on turning up her toes anytime soon it was simply one of the odd things you considered when you spent too much time on your own.

‘Nobody starts out intending to be an alcoholic, Tom. It’s nobody’s choice.’

She calls alcoholism a disease that haunts the soul.

‘Friends aren’t merely the tumbleweed of faces that roll in and out of your life. Friends are the ones you connect with and who last a lifetime. You’ll pass a million people on your path and just a few will be worth spending time with.’

‘Choose wisely, says Yoda.’

‘People think all you have to do is stop drinking. Simple. But it’s not. It’s a part of you now. A way of life. An escape. It’s a temporary relief from everyday stresses. Why would you want to stop that?’

‘It’s where you go from here that matters. How you manage.’

‘Having a drink helped. Stopped it all. Gave me a break.’ He blinked slowly. ‘And then the next day it’s all back. I’m right in the middle of it all again. No escape. So I’d pick up another bottle. It’s a cycle. There’s no way out of it.’

‘It’s the wonder of getting older; you can say what you think and get away with it.

there were so many people who, for whatever reason, found themselves isolated. Maybe some were happy with that set-up, maybe even Savage was. They lived a stone’s throw from each other but rarely interacted and then only on a superficial level. But perhaps interaction for interaction’s sake was worse than being lonely.

Every book is a key that unlocks another world, leads us down the path of a different life and offers the chance to explore an unexpected adventure. Every one is a gift of either knowledge, entertainment or pure escapism and goodness knows we all need that from time to time. Like the rest of you, I always thought the library would be here. I never expected it to be under threat. It’s a stark reminder to not take anything in life for granted. You only properly start fighting for something when you realise you’re going to lose it.’