The Librarian

Meredith hadn’t always wanted to be a librarian.  In fact, she had never wanted to be a librarian.  It just seemed to happen.  Her whole life had just seemed to happen.  She supposed she once had dreams, maybe even an adventure or two before the library.  But she didn’t remember.  Her life was just like the books.  She had stacked the memories away somewhere, somewhere she could keep them for later when she wanted to check them out, read them one more time.  Or more importantly, where she could forget them without losing them completely.

            She had gotten used to being invisible.  Her job was to be invisible.  If people did come to the library, which wasn’t often, they didn’t come to see her.  No one came to the library anymore, much less to talk to the somewhat young, somewhat pretty, somewhat short, somewhat average, somewhat altogether uninteresting woman behind the desk that sat directly in the middle of the first floor, surrounded by evenly spaced rows of composite wood shelves.  Besides, she liked being invisible.  Perhaps it was the reason why she had accepted the job.  Things were just easier when you were somewhat invisible.   

            The library itself was unimportant and unnoticed to the majority of the people in the neighborhood.  Built in the time before internet and amazon.com and Ebay and even Barnes and Noble, before the time of coffee shops with free wifi and cafes with comfy chairs, the library had outlived its time of mystery and adventure.  The old armchairs tucked away in its corners were now lumpy and an outdated orange.  The books themselves were faded and dusty, many of them put back in the wrong place and forgotten, checked out indefinitely.  It wasn’t old enough to hold that mystery that is only attributed to the sort of buildings made of stone with pillars out front and marble curved staircases and light fixtures that are made to look like old gas lamps. It was square and made of brick and cheap linoleum and gray carpet and composite wood.  Utilitarian does not create mystery.  The library was utilitarian.  The library was old, but not old enough.  The library was not mysterious.

            Much like Meredith. 

            She didn’t look up when she heard the approaching squeaking of the shoes on linoleum.  No one ever saw her sitting at her desk, stamping the ten returns she received each day.  Before lunch, after she had unlocked the front doors, turned on the lights, and put her brown canvas purse, the one that she always thought was too large, behind the desk beside the wicker trash can, she would go the return box and recover those titles that had been so lucky as to be found among the thousands of ignored on the shelves.   Settling herself into her chair, she would then arrange the stack of books in a neat pile beside her left elbow, not the right, so that it wouldn’t interfere with her stamping. 

The ink for the stamp was pink.  She hated pink.  She had always wanted it to be blue.

Only when she realized that the squeaks were moving in her direction did she raise her eyes, only her eyes, from her task of placing the new stamp perfectly below the last on each yellowed inside page. She saw the disheveled curly head before she heard the voice, but the person across the tall, composite wood counter from her was too short for her to see his face.  She only caught a glimpse of golden freckles on a pale forehead that almost glowed in the overwhelming white of the fluorescent lighting.  The squeak of his sneakers on the beige-speckled linoleum floor betrayed the hurried frustration of his miniature purpose.  

            The hair was the same color as hers, except that it hadn’t been dulled by an entire lifetime spent hiding from the sun.  A soft, internal light radiated from the golden-hinted auburn.

            Meredith didn’t stop her mechanical stamping.  “Can I help you?” 

            The clearing of the small throat reminded Meredith of the high pitched grind her electric pencil sharpener produced, the pencil sharpener on the left side of her desk that sat at a perfect right angle to the corner and that she used everyday right after her lunch break.  Even if her pencils didn’t need sharpening.

            “I need an adventure.”

            The stamp hesitated for a second as Meredith processed the request.  Did they have a section labeled adventure?  No, no of course not.

            “We don’t have an adventure section,” she said, looking up from her stamping and addressing the red mop that seemed to hover at the edge of her desk.  It reminded her of…she didn’t know what.  “You should go to the children’s books.”

            She thought that would end it.  But the disembodied hair remained.  She heard the squeak of the shoes again and the hair gave way to a forehead, then a set of huge blue eyes framed by long golden lashes.

            “Please.  I can’t find an adventure.”

            The plea held the tremor of tears, but also confidence.  Assertiveness.  Duty.  The plea of preachers at altar call.  The call of patriots for liberty and judges for justice.  A prince pleading for the people of his nation rise up and fight for their way of life.

            Meredith sat with stamp suspended in midair above The Birdwatcher’s Guide to the Birds of North America.  Her hand trembled.  Only the when the stamp quaked from her fingers and bled a fatal pink stain onto the wrong side of the inside cover did she recover. 

            Preachers?  Patriots?  Judges and princes?

Leaving the desk now would mean that her stamping would be interrupted.  The pile of books would be left on the desk when they should be stamped and put on the shelves.  Those books were her only task.  She was a librarian, and librarians put away their books.  A librarian was what she was.

            The blue eyes blinked once.

            Her tongue rebelled against her and formed the one reluctant word of rebellion.

            “Sure.”