The things we do not say.
The library is fairly emptied, like a vacuum and scattered air particles. I ease my way among the shelves from the escalator leading to the fourth floor, and push the glass door gingerly open a crack enough to let myself slip quietly in. The glass doors swing silently close. The whole library is a structure of glass. I shiver a little, but for the most part, my hoodie protects me from the biting 19 degree Celsius air. And from the lingering gazes of the librarian, the curious parents seated with their children in multicoloured chairs, who will otherwise be looking at my lanky form, my pale arms balancing precaciously a steadily growing pile of books. I think it looks to them that the books will fall to the ground any moment, and for a split seond I wonder if they're searching for a cue to cover their ears from the impending crash. I wonder how many people think otherwise: that my arms would break from the load, and I'll be a nonchalant bleeding mess.
But I know they will not: they're used to such torture.
It is easy, if one assumes a perfectly natural pose. I comb the shelves absent-mindedly, and every now and then I pick up a paperback with an artfully designed cover: no matter the content. The teenage section has close to nothing that I need: I find the books too thin, the covers too childishly drawn to ever appeal to my growing interests. Why would someone hang a crude drawing when a still life is in her reach? In a sense, I think I tire of the childish voices, the repetitive content: the same stories whispered in a thousand different voices in a messy medley that sounds like noise. Sometimes, I find a frail warble amid the confusion that I like, but it's only sometimes.
Another book, then another, barely glancing at the blurb, paying least attention to author, text type and plot, so unlike my daily routine it feels I'm in the body of another. As book after book plummets with resignation into my open arms, myself an uinterested reader, I lose count of my books, and the weight.
But this is far from the point. I glance at my watch: I have stayed for exactly 5 minutes, 40 seconds. Not a moment too soon. Two students enter the glass room, chattering excitedly. I know they will sit down in a corner, ignore the promising, full shelves and talk like there's no tomorrow. As I exit the room, I pour all five books from these shelves into the return tray. Looking back, I find them cosily seated. I try not to smile: it's not worth two shreds of amusement, winning a guessing game with myself.
It is with caution and a heart with trepidation that I sneak to the junior section, light-footed, seemingly graceful and heady, with an adequate sense of seriousness. I know this library, I tell myself in my head, there's nothing to be afraid of. Somehow a speck of doubt refuses to depart. I wonder if it's because I used to come here, but not anymore. Changes ignites a frightful, foreign sensation. Nothing is ever the same. I spot it with a subtle leap of joy and take the audiobook into my hands. Mine, mine, I cannot help repeating this in my head. I shove it out of sight, out of the prying hands of strangers and potential thieves.
I sneak this from the junior section at the 4th floor down to the service counter on the 3rd floor, carefully avoiding anyone's eye down the elevator by staring at the books in my hands, and praying I don't meet anyone I know. I like hoodies: they keep me safe and a good part of me out of sight. The elevator has glass panels: I cannot help noticing.
The librarian doesn't make a questioning noise like I expect her to, or give me funny looks. The audiobook is visible. 'Yes?' she asks, and I answer with an almost inaudible voice (my best) that I'd like to borrow this, The words tumble out smoothly without tripping: excellent. I half-expect her to at first, and breathe a silent sigh of relief that she doesn't. I pin a 'nice' label on her in my head while I try to find her name tag. If she ever does I have an answer ready: it's for my sister, and this requires even more courage from my part, and smooth, casual tone. I make this up every time I would need it, knowing well the guilt that would well up inside me as I descend the elevator, the exchange replaying a thousand times in my head while I figure out if I had slipped up. Knowing very well I wasn't good at lying, least to myself.
'There you go,' She says. 'Thank you,' I murmur/mouth and walk off. Down the escalator I tuck it casually, almost without a second thought between An Outline of Psychoanalysis and Living with Bipolar, as if I hadn't meant it to be there but somehow it did and I was fine with that. Two books that summarise my identity and personality in the best possible way, a barrier from a possible approach from an friend who wouldn't understand what lies beneath their formal, daunting covers, conveniently shielding my delicate softer side from the erosion of the thoughtless world, the part of me in dresses and child-sized mary janes that watches reruns of Mary Poppins while sitting down and standing up.
It was a rush to get home, and when I finally do I slump unceremoniously on the couth without changing out of my jeans, insert Disc 1 into my CD player and push the 'on' button. Listening all the while, and enjoying every moment of this second smuggled childhood.
My secret guilty pleasure.
(And that was Cathy Cassidy's Driftwood.)