A Trip to the Library
by Tharseo Ziyet Jovita
Writhing and rolling. Written around his body in the colour pale of dim moonlight was the word pain. Morning comes.He survived. Today is going to be a good day, he’s sure. Food first. Like everybody who understands that it’s about the fill and the nutrients, he puts everything in the pot and turns on the heat after. He doesn’t forget to make tea, in the past three months he forgot once – not to make tea, but to buy a new pack when the last one finished. He makes time to complete his work, due by noon, but doesn’t make his bed. He leaves his room, leaves the house. It is a cloudy day and it affects his mind, that is his guess at least. I know that the weather has nothing to do with it. It is really about whether or not he should be participating in any of this, all the world’s a stage and this actor doesn’t like his role.
Like many other days, he will take the longer path – the path strewn with bushes. He does this because he likes to avoid meeting too many people on the road. I understand – they are always asking too many questions. Sometimes it’s about how he walks, is one leg longer than the other? Why is he always listening to music with no lyrics? Or why he never uses headphones but just blasts it with his phone speaker, does he even know the names of the instruments being played? For the few that feel like they know him well, how good or bad are his grades? Or why he’s so weak and slow, is he a sickler or chronically ill? One boy who found himself funny asked how much more time he had to live on earth. This question he answered: “Not very long.”
His face brightens up. For good reason too, it is a beautiful view. The mix of brown, green, blue, white and grey. I would take it as evidence of a hand, a good hand over everything, but the wretched boy will disagree. Wriggling in a print formed in the loose earth is a dying worm. When he bends to have a close look it stops, “Hmm, even insects are shy. Or is it stage fright?” He is silly too. Continuing to walk, he stretches his arms but he can’t hold two blades from both sides at once. The farmer was wise to give enough room for the path. The crops are doing well, millet stands so tall, long compact pannicles that reach for the sky. The sea above us, many ships floating across it. And then it crosses his mind, that sharp pain that only visits at night. It always feels like a shark is gnawing away the muscles of his stomach. The first time it happened he told me he was surprised that he didn’t die of shock.
He takes his phone from his pocket. There are brighter things in them, plastics that glitter. Twitter doesn’t help as he sees her new update. Yesterday he called twice and she didn’t pick up, didn’t call back. I would tell him not to bother but he never hears me. I am the one cursed to see and hear him all the time, yet he wrote in his note that no one sees him. I do. And every disgusting bit too. A deep sigh comes from him, we are tired of this play. It will happen soon either when the shark pops out, when the pain switches off his brain, or when he eventually leaps.
At the library, the security causes us trouble. We are here every day but he thoroughly checks our card like he has never seen us. We find the card in between our notebook.
Four storeys is enough reason to install an elevator but the admin of this place does not agree. Maybe we’re being unrealistic, places like this don’t get enough funds and we should just be grateful that we have a space like this.
Someone is sitting on my spot and I don’t like it. This woman is always here too, she knows that is my spot but she chose to sit there, how can they be all so inconsiderate?
This seat isn’t too bad.
The one book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time is only good on the first page. Somebody should explain this to us, we deserve better. I spend the next two minutes drawing aimless lines, wandering and swirling around the page like me – us in this world, before I notice it. The windows anti-burglary is damaged and hanging from one end. We wonder how it got damaged and I laugh at how it’s highly improbable that a burglar would try on the fourth flour.
We begin writing the note: “To Thelma… I should tell you this every day, but it is fair to me that I should only say it on a day like this, I love you.”
He stands to make for the window while I am screaming. He hears me for the first time as I tell him to just go there and ask for his seat.
We reach there and she raises her head and smiles, she is looking through a photo album. I am stunned by the detail. What kind of camera was used to capture this insect? “What is this called?” He and I asked at once, in sync finally.
“There is no one else here to disturb, sit beside me and I’ll tell you all about it,” she said. I excuse us and write another note: “To Thelma… not today.”
WENSUM 