J. Motoki is a nomadic librarian who writes in the stacks, snubs patrons, and whispers uncomfortable things from the shadows. Her work have been published in Nowhere.Ink, Rune Bear, and Coffin Bell. You can read more of her work at www.jumotki.com.
Daily Tally
Closing shift. I’m not feeling myself tonight. My sweaty hand clutches a brass tally counter, a relic from the card catalogue days, and the click, click, clicking sets my teeth on edge. (Internet Search: What is fever of the hands?) Thirty minutes until closing and patrons still swarm through the doors.
All these people returning books at night, tossing them down the book drop, one by one. Flutter of page wings. All these people stamping up the stairs to gawk at the domed glass ceiling, stars trapped in foggy reflection. Look at their necks, slender tendons on sticks, look how vulnerable. Remember when we thought turkeys stare skyward and drown in rain?
You ask: will these glass walls last the end times?
Asking the real questions.
My desk in the corner reads REFERENCE. An invitation to stupid inquiry. If you ask for restroom directions, I’ll point you down the only hall and watch you come back, confused. Internet trouble? Clicking the red X will NOT expand new tabs. ILLs take a minimum of five to ten business days, I’m sorry you need this specific book for your research paper that’s due tomorrow. No, I don’t know why you forgot to breathe the other day, ask your general practitioner. Better yet, say nothing until the time comes when you forget again, until you start to inhale again. Trigger lung collapse, your face bruised and crumpling like old fruit.
After break, an elderly lady smiles knowingly as I rub my bloated stomach. Boy or girl?
It is, in fact, pies.
Little boy: Coffin bells, how do they ring if there’s no one around to ring them?
The Victorian paradox; that pall riddle. I search the question, our interests piqued. See, the string is tied to the deceased’s finger―if they wake, they ring the bells. Little boy, hands over his mouth, the world’s biggest secret revealed only to him, he is going to laugh or scream.
Attention guests: the library will be closing in—
Down the hall these turkeys go, and I hear a woman cluck to her friend: it was so strange, like I forgot to know how to breathe.