Where People Go to Be Alone

The library was almost empty at lunch.

Just the fluorescent hum and me

and one person at a desk

with their head down,

reading something they didn't want to read.

Or maybe they did. Maybe they were

the kind of person who chooses

the library over

wherever else they could be.

The dust was visible in the light beams.

Actual dust, hanging in the air,

like the library was slowly becoming

less real. Like it was dissolving

into its own quiet.

A page turned somewhere in the stacks.

A single page. Deliberate.

The only sound that mattered.

I walked to a table and sat down.

Didn't take anything out.

Just sat.

The person at the desk didn't look up.

I didn't expect them to.

This is where people come

when they need to be alone

but can't be alone at home.

When the apartment is too loud

or too empty or too full

of things they can't stop thinking about.

The library asks nothing of you

except that you stay quiet.

That you don't disrupt

the sound of pages turning.

The hum of machines.

The breathing of people

who are here for the same reason you are:

to disappear without actually leaving.

I sat there for twenty minutes.

Didn't read. Didn't do anything.

Just existed in a space where existing

seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

When I left, the person at the desk

was still there.

Still reading.

Still not looking up.

I wondered if they were really reading

or if they were just hiding

the same way I was.

Either way, we were the only two people

in the world for a little while.

And that was enough.