Tuesday night was the library's big Autumnal Equinox Celebration and if you were not there, you missed a hell of a time. Last minute we did have some unforeseen changes. Mr. Rabbit Pete, local entertainer for children, had to cancel due to a case of paw and mouth disease. Our circulation librarian Brenda has some contacts in the music industry though, and a little band called Carnal Death Punch was able to fill in and rocked the dust off the library shelves!
They came in the library like locusts into a cornfield. Sheets were torn from the hands of librarians. They ran through the stacks with wild abandon. The library scavenger hunt began in a fury.
I am writing this to clear up any misconceptions that may have arisen during this week's "Revolution" type programming at the library. The library is not calling for the harm of any person or persons, nor do we condone the destruction of public or private property. Our staff and Prof. Steve Hystarion of Banned Community College wish the public to know both the history of civil disobedience and the types of activities that have resulted because of stagnant economies and upper class greed at the expense of those who work for them.
At two o'clock in the afternoon on a normal Friday, masked men entered the library. Armed and spread out in a search pattern, they stalked over to the magazine area, into the fiction and nonfiction stacks, and around the children's section. Story time had just gotten started and moms bouncing toddlers to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus" tried to smile to not scare the children.
One of my favorite authors is Terry Pratchett. That being said, I have not read all his books. I set about to rectify that a few years ago by reading the whole of the Discworld in publication order. As you can see, it's been slow going. Here we are, though, with the thirteenth book in the series, and I vow to finish them all before they finish me. My gods did I enjoy reading this story about religion and a solid case against its organization while allowing for individual faith.
Dave and Nancy found the old computers while going through storage looking for children's costumes. At least, that's what they said they were doing. The two of them often find out of the way places to be alone.
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.
Are you working? She's small and squat and looking up at me from the other side of the reference desk.
I said yes. Can I help?
Probably not. I have this monkey at home that keeps eating my petunias.
In some ways, the library has always known about the goblin that lives under the computer lab. We built the lab without surveying. We ignored the constant clatter of pipes and low grumbles. We carried on without care and are now reaping the consequences of our failure to certify if the computer lab was or was not "goblin free."
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.
"Hey, I think your friend is here," the children's librarian said.
I did not look up from the article I was reading on movies using artificial intelligence to replace the people who picked movies.
Naomi said, "The friend with the hat."
"You gotta be more specific than that," I said,
"I can't smell my coffee," the technical services librarian said from the back of the workroom.
"What was that, Martha?" the children's librarian said.
"My coffee has gone flat," Martha said. She had her nose in the cup that said "Best Effin Motherfucker."
"Coffee tastes fine to me," the children's librarian said. Naomi had just poured herself a fresh cup. She had made the pot, in fact, less than an hour ago.
"Hi, do you have a small meeting room?" She was small and wearing a long yellow scarf with little orange pumpkins on it. Her smile made me smile.
"We do. You're in luck, there's one free. Do you have a library card?" I said.
She frowned. "I don't."
"That's okay. We just need to hold a form of identification, then. They check out for an hour and that's rounded up for the quarter hour. So for now, you'd have it until 11:15."
"I just wanted to stop and ask if your daddy was okay," she said out the window of a late model Ford Explorer.
The dog had just stopped to cop a squat. It whined a bit, also annoyed that our neighbor had taken this moment to pull over to the side of the road and ask about the family.
"He died," I said. "Just after Thanksgiving."
She pulled her robe tight against her chest with one hand. "I'm so sorry to hear that. Will you be doing anything?"
"We had a small funeral over the weekend."
A man in a yellow coat walked the stacks of the library. Back and forth, he stalked and ran his finger along the spines making a quiet little rattle on the metal shelves. He looked for nothing, wanted little, and let his eyes search.
"Anything I can help you with?" a page shelving some cookbooks said.
He smiled and said no in a low voice like thunder a mile off.
"Sorry," a teenager in the fiction section said, moving aside to let the man in the yellow coat pass.
The man nodded and passed. The teenager smelled cinnamon and clover.
A librarian saw the man pass the window in front of the backroom. The librarian was binding a book that had been torn by a dog. He had already cleaned off the piss that the dog had left. No stains, just a few sprinkles on the book jacket. At least that's what the patron had said his dog did. The librarian had said thank you and taken the bag with the torn book with a little urine on it. No fee. The dog owner could not afford the title, a nonfiction reference book about training Doberman pinchers, and the librarian could not be bothered. As the man in the yellow coat passed the window, though, the librarian was bothered.
"I think something's wrong," the librarian binding the book said to the other librarian.
The other librarian had her email displayed on the computer and swiped her phone. She had been on a dating app looking for someone to spend Saturday night with. She paid extra for the app to show her matches that liked movies and to hide anyone over five foot, five inches. Man or woman, she liked them short. She asked what the book binder meant.
"Just a feeling. Saw this guy," the binder said.
Swiper looked up. "What kind of guy?"
"Guy in a yellow coat."
"Like, he might open the yellow coat?"
"No, not that kind of coat. And it was open. I think he had a t-shirt and jeans under it."
Swiper looked back at her phone to see Jeremy, five foot three inches of accountant. She swiped. "Want me to take a look?"
Binder, standing now, said, "I'll check it out."
He found the man in the yellow coat on the second floor, staring out a window over the tire market next door and the cemetery beyond. He pretended to straighten some shelves, but the man turned a little and said, "Rain."
Binder looked out, not seeing a drop. "I think it might tonight."
"It will," the man said. "It always rains when the sky is red like it was this morning. You know that?"
"I don't think so."
"Red sky at night is a shepherd's delight. Red sky in morning, a shepherd take warning." He said it sing-song, like a nursery rhyme or some tune he had almost forgotten. "It's true. Works how the sun shines through the clouds, those coming and going bouncing all that dust and water around and making the color turn. It's in the Bible."
"Huh," Binder said.
"It's also a nice little rhyme, don't you think?"
"My grandpa used to say it."
"Yeah."
They stood looking out over the tire place and the setting sun. It all went from yellow to blue and right at the end there was a flash of green on the horizon.
"Whoa, did you-" Binder said and turned but the man in the yellow coat had gone.
Rain began to drip and tap on the window. It went slow at first then harder, the drops fat and heavy. Binder went to the backroom feeling outside himself. Something inside had become green and dark.
Swiper worked on her email, the phone next to the keyboard. She typed as he entered, finishing and looking back at Binder. "You okay?"
"Red sky in the morning," he said.
Swiper said, "Sailor take warning."
"I always heard shepherd."
Swiper felt something for him then. Her coworker had a sadness, a deep empty look that made her want to wrap him up in her arms and hold him. Let him cry and hold on to her while she stroked his head and called him "sweet boy." She told herself it was the rain, making her want to feel cuddly and cozy, as he went back to fixing the book and she went to see if the page needed help with the cookbooks before they closed.
A man with a shotgun over his shoulder and a short sword at his waist walked into the library and right up to the circulation desk. He asked to see the manager. The librarian on duty came and got me from my office, telling me shit might be about to go down.
"Sir, first off, you can't bring a weapon in the library. Please take those outside," I said.
"Aw shit. Yeah, well, can you come too?" he said.
I said I could and followed him to the front door. I'm single, nobody waiting for me to come home, and have lived a good life. I thought about telling the librarian at the desk to tell my mom I loved her, but that seemed overkill.
Outside, he pointed to a flock of Canadian geese walking around the lawn. The large gray, black, and white creatures pecked at each other and the grass. A few eyed us. They were all adults as far as I could tell but then again I have no idea what a teenage goose looks like.
He said, "Those yours?"
"The geese?" I said.
"Yeah."
"I don't own any animals."
"No. Like the library. They in your yard. Y'all takin care of them or something?"
I thought a moment. As far as I know, I had not entered into any protective agreement with the creatures. I told him no.
"Okay then," he said. "I'm gonna get one. Mind being backup?"
"What exactly is happening?"
"Well, Canadian geese there, those are good eatin. Usually I just get the ones on my property, over out by the lake. Seems they don't come around much anymore. Anyway, they mostly just dumb. You can walk right up to them and get'em quick. One hard swipe." He pulled the short sword from his belt and gave it a swing, right to left. "But they can get mean, and when there's a bunch it's best to use scatter shot."
"So to get this straight. You're going to walk over there, cut the head off a goose, and if they get mad about it I'm supposed to break it up with the shotgun," I said.
"That's about the skinny," he said, thrusting out the shotgun.
"Sir, this is a library."
"Yeah. But they don't know that."
"There's kids inside."
He lowered the shotgun to his side. "So that's a no."
"I'm pretty sure it's illegal to shoot a weapon in the city limits. Probably some hunting laws, too."
"You gonna call the sheriff?"
"Not the sheriff, but city police are right across the street."
"Oh, shit. Why didn't I think of that? Thank you, library man," and he walked off toward the police station.
I watched him go and decided to do paperwork in my office all afternoon. I told the librarian on duty to call me when they heard something. They asked what kind of something, and I said they would know.
Twenty minutes later children began screaming. A man began hollering. Two shotgun blasts filled the town square. I peaked out to see the man holding a headless bird by the neck, a city police officer holding the shotgun and standing over a bloody pile of feathers. Several geese were fleeing the scene.
The librarian on duty knocked on my door.
The windows on the north side of the library shook when the thunder rolled through. The sound came in waves crashing against the glass, one rumbling after another. Everyone looked out at the dark clouds.
"I think the power might go out," the librarian said to the page.
The page nodded.
The patrons sat at the computers. Some mumbled to themselves, some sang, while others hunched over the keyboard an inch from the screen and hunted. They hunted for things only they would know when they found.
"Let's go around. Tell everyone to save. Just in case," the librarian said.
They started on the right while the page went left. They said quietly, "Just in case the power goes out, remember to save if you're working on something." They waved when the person had headphones. They offered to help print and flash drives. The computers would save nothing.
Another roll of thunder with a flash. The windows rattled again. The patrons continued to work.
When they were done, the librarian and the page went ahead and made signs. Power out. Internet not available. If anyone would read them in the dark, they didn't know.
When nature flipped the switch, it was quiet. No thunder or lightning or dramatic crack from the heavens. Just a flicker of the lights and everything was dark.
People paused. The rain hit the windows. Shadows creeped and filled all the empty spaces. The quiet came as the computer hum and the click clack of fingers died.
"What happened?" one voice said.
"Power's out," another said.
Another: "No shit."
One man stood and walked to the librarian and the page standing at the desk. "When's the power coming back?"
The librarian said they did not know.
"I almost had that printed. Good thing I saved," he said.
The page said the computers did not save. Unless he did it in the cloud.
"I just hit the save. Because of those clouds," the man said and pointed at the rain splattered north facing windows where the dark clouds blotted out the sun.
They tried to explain all the way until the lights came back. Then more thunder, this time inside the library.