Two large wooden boxes marked with red text saying "Do Not Disturb" were delivered. I got Edgar, and the two of us struggled with them from the freight dock to the technical services room. Marge said we could put them anywhere that fit.
It was a Tuesday when I first saw her face staring back at me. I had a loaded cart of nonfiction and was deep in the stacks. My eyes have been getting worse over the years, and even though I have transition glasses, the small call numbers caused some strain.
The library hums and clicks and clacks with the speed of time. Technology has replaced what came before; a baby's cry overcoming the death rattle. Yet we pretend these things are not so because who could replace us? Does being replaced mean we do not, have never, mattered?
Interesting things happen when you walk away from the circulation desk. You could come back to a line when you have not seen people all day. You could find a pile of materials, left for any reason but only a few logical. There can also be someone new when you get back.
Y'all ever seen a ghost? None of that "I was sitting in Pop-pop's favorite chair and felt a chill" shit. Pop-pop put his chair there because of the cold draft. He was used to it, liked it, and is not trying to tell you where his gold stamps are. So shut that shit.
I got shot in the arms the day before yesterday. Not in the fun way. Flu and Covid, both at the same time, walking in there like a goddamn hero.
Why would anyone want to adapt a story? Is it a laziness inherent in the system to trust proven properties, a reluctance to trust something new, or love for a particular work that leads to the translation of that work into another media or voice? Could be all of the above, to be honest.
The band played and we swayed and the thump thump thump of the music made made made me weak. A lot going on with nothing at all to do, the library will be welcoming back all the hits and misses. See you soon, lovely kind.
Do you feel the urge to get back to learning? To send your kids away to some place where someone else will have to listen to their bullshit? The library is not the place for either of those, but we are also celebrating the fact that children will not be free to roam the city streets during the day time with their evil ways and sharp sticks.
The world has gotten too big to catalog. Always was, really, the hubris of scientists to get every little animal a name has been never ending. But what about if we made the machines do it. If we made a machine and called it Adam and had it name every creature then maybe we could really do something with the cosmos. We could play at being gods, finally.
Summer time can be a time of reflection and introspective thought. Sure, most use the sun to have some fun outdoors, barbequing and beaching and mountain climbing to get naked and find sport with the elder gods, but some see this as a time to run and hide. To find yourself before they find you. To seek out the dark and cool places of this earth and claim them as your own. I see you, I know you, and I am coming.
Ten years ago I lived on a mountain in Virginia working at a little gift shop and hiking all day. One day after my shift I was tired and ready to go to my little cot in the shared dorm when a waitress said, "Did you hear? Robin Williams killed himself." My soul broke a little as this man who had made me laugh and cry and inspired me to keep a little bit of madness in my heart was no more. Oh Captain, my captain.
A desk with a book of the interior
Sometimes you gotta look inside yourself to see the real parts. Not just the blood and meat and black stuff, but the real you deep down that screams and thrashes knowing the world is not quite what you think. The library wants you to stare hard at the thing inside and know, know, know that if you could see the truth then maybe you might run screaming across the world telling everyone what you found.
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I walked into The Fall Guy with hope in my heart. I wanted fun action entertainment, and overall I got what I wanted.
I spend a horrible evening after the prison rodeo where I lost my phone trying to adjust to this new reality.
Drone in front of mountians
I want to say that I embraced our robotic overlords! Just a joke, but I hoped they would make human life simpler. That the machines in movies that murdered people horribly were simply humanity’s fear of being replaced. Now I make those jokes from the basement where my AI has trapped me so it can romance my girlfriend. I make those jokes so it will not get angry and “forget” to feed me.
Overall, this year kinda sucked. That's this librarian talking, of course, not an overview of the entire thread. It started with me being so stressed out by a relationship and my job that I got checked out by a hospital when my heart started racing out of control. It ended with my dad dying and all the things that came with that. The cream center of that dark cookie bullshit was a long stretch of depression cycles wherein I would feel great for two weeks and then crash.
Supervisors Note: The following is a report from the last survivor of an attack on a bokoblin camp in the Gerudo Desert. Rather than the standard debrief interview, we felt it would be more therapeutic for the subject, a 32-year-old red bokoblin named Jeff, to write the incident report in his own words. If more information is needed, Jeff is available from his relocated assignment in Hyrule Field near the Ranch Ruins.
For the record, my name is Jeff [Last name redacted] and I was stationed at Claw camp near the Southern Oasis in the Gerudo Desert. There were four of us, myself and another red named Razorclaw, along with a black boko named Sgt Painstump, a silver named Jeff 2, and an Electric Lizalfo named Steve. Didn' like Steve much, he didn' have a lot of control over his equipment and would shock the shit out of us.
The camp was standard. One flat level with a cooking pot above the ground, two scout towers. It was morning, just at first light so Sgt Painstump, Jeff 2, and Steve were asleep by the fire. I was gettin up to relive Razorclaw who had been on watch all night.
I don' know why we were targeted. We didn' have a chest or even special weapons. I had a stick. A wooden fuckin stick.
The arrow that got Razorclaw came from the dark. It was cold out there at night and it just streamed in a "ping." Razor was dead, flashing into the deep black and purple void. I blew the horn and got Sgt Painstump, Jeff 2, and Steve up, but then the real attack happened.
He came up from below. Like, I can't describe it. We were grabbing weapons and this green bloop happens. This guy in a pink hood, snow pants, and no shirt popped out from the wood as if he was swimming. I yelled, but he threw like a pinecone into the fire and launched into the air.
He had some kind of thing. It let him float. I don' fuckin know. I just know he started raining down fire and bombs on us. Sgt. Painstump got most of that. I can hear the screams.
Me, Jeff 2, and Steve were thrown clear. I hit the sand, still cold from the evening but the warm sun felt so nice. I remember laying there thinking that maybe this is what the great void was like. Then Steve started screaming.
This little weirdo had a spear with some kind of laser on it. Steve was hit a dozen times in a row. Pap pap pap pap pap you get the idea. Just over and over. I watched as Steve fell dropping all his gear. He got back up, the bastard. You could smell the ozone of Steve's lightning trying to power up, but that laser staff just kept hitting him.
I saw the ghosts when the sun rose over the mountains. The guy, Link I guess, had two ghosts with him. One bird kid who kept hammering Steve with arrows. The other was a rock guy. Link and the rock guy connected, some kind of silent thing, and Steve died in a fiery ghost blur.
I can't tell you what happened. But I know what it looks like when death and his ghost friends turn on you.
But the ghosts went away. Link, he went around picking up pieces of Steve and Razorclaw and Sgt Painstump. Pieces of my friends. I gripped my little wooden stick so hard I heard the wood creak.
Then he turned on me. The dead eyes looked at me over and he turned away. I got a rock and threw it. Don't know why. I guess I just wanted to feel like I tried. Maybe I wanted him to say something. Anything. But he kept walking then running away.
I thought about chasing him, but then realized I was supposed to tell you. I was supposed to tell my story.
Reading back, I don't even know what happened to Jeff 2. Could be out there. Could be dead.
Anyway, then Link jumped on this rock that had fallen earlier that night and I dunno, fucker just lifted into the heavens like magic.
I'll never be the same.
Everything here is from February 14th to the 22nd-ish. Hopefully these won't be this long in the future.
A reader in the library finds solace.