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Two Thoughts in the Library (guest stories by Anca)
2.18.2003 by Rosemary, every Tuesday.


I have two neat things from Anca to offer for this Tuesday. I am excited!

My column won't be updated next week because I'll be somewhere warm, or possibly stranded on a bus outside of Toledo. I am very much hoping for the former. Hopefully I'll have a story-like synopsis of the adventure when I get back; happy reading weeks to everyone Universityish.




1. Munching on an apple nonchalantly in a grim basement cafeteria, I found myself having yet another delusion of grandeur. Of course, I was orchestrating some masterpiece of literature, rearranging the perfect opening sentence with nary a thought to plot, because I’ve decided I’m above plot—or below it, depending on my delusion. Perhaps I was looking wistful in my reverie, perhaps dreamy, but a strapping young lad asks if he may join me and I concur and immediately lose my train of thought. I begin taking dainty nibbles at my apple to prolong my need for sharing a lunch table. I plead with him to talk to me. Say something! Introduce yourself! (Clearly I cannot.) But he begins to eat a sandwich and as I finish my apple the window closes with my mouth’s final mastication. I contemplate feigning work to linger, to see what would happen. But instead I wrap my apple core in a used napkin, gather my things and go. Crisis averted. Potential intact. Life remains blissfully uneventful.



2. I am an aural irritant. I wear corduroys to the library. I swish-swish-fpp-fpp through the oppressive silence and decaying bodies, bringing both life and irritation to those still gasping for air. I disrupt the smooth sound of pen-to-paper, rasping pages mid-turn, I fpp-swish-fpp amidst the pernicious threat of paper-cuts. I carry books as my ticket inside but my subversive mission is clear: to pierce the silence with incessant swish-fpp-fpp-swish-swish. I only wish I could mimic the muted crunch of boots on snow, pebbles, and salt, to harmonize with my corduroy, and realize, yes! And I run outside and do just that, books forgotten, mummified corpses left behind, breathing, stomping, swish-swish-fpp-fpping. Truly, the cloth of kings.



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