But First, I Shall Have Tea

12:23 PM
An eternity has passed.

12:24 PM
That is to say, three days have passed. And they were, as I predicted, an eternity long.

12:30 PM
Here's the bus to take me back to town and away from the hospital and my miserable roommate.

12:32 PM
She wasn't sorry to see me go. Ha, well, I saw the next woman they were wheeling in to take up my bedspace. My roommate will be screaming for me to come back.

12:37 PM
I hate buses. And people who bring their horrible little yappy dogs onto the bus with them.

12:38 PM
And the horrible little yappy dogs, for that matter. Why to people like tiny dogs that yip all the time? Cats are quiet and all they do is sleep and occasionally eat bits of furniture when they're not entertained properly.

12:38 and a few seconds PM
Oh my god, my cats. Who's been looking after them?! I've been in a coma for over four months; what will have happened to them? I can't believe I forgot about this.

12:38 PM
Well I didn't actually forget. I was indefinitely unconscious. But they won't understand. They're cats. All they understand is tuna and cuddling.

12:40 PM
Perhaps Macy took them home; she knew I had cats. She's looked after them for me before.

12:42 PM
Which brings up a whole new host of worries.

12:43 PM
This bus is taking forever.

12:50 PM
I'm going to gut that little dog.

1:54 PM
Here! My bus stop at last--only a few more minutes of walking and I can sort everything out...

2:00 PM
My rooms are empty. I have opened the door to room number 316, with my key, in my apartment building. I'm sure I'm in the right place, otherwise the key would not have worked. Which does not make sense. My rent was paid to the end of the year, and, if I'm not very much mistaken, the end of the year has not come. So where has my stuff gone? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH MY CATS?

2:07 PM
I've cornered the landlord. We'll see what he has to say about this.
"What have you done with my things?" I hope that sounded outraged enough. That's right, cower in fear. This is going to take a lot of explanation on his part.
"Well, Ms. Evans...we, we thought you were dead, so we... canceled your claim on the apartment. It's been rented out to a nice young couple, they're moving in next week, actually..." I would have a heart attack right now, but it would mean that I'd have to go back to the hospital. "I am NOT dead. I paid for that apartment! You had no right to give it to someone else! What did you do with my cats?! My things?"

2:09 PM
He's gone and ducked behind the counter in the lobby. Probably a good move on his part, but I am not pleased. I shall just have to follow him.
"My cats?" No need for complete sentences now; I think I've tapped into the primeval form of communication. Few words, much emotion. In this case, rage. Ug make fire, Ug set you on fire!
My, he's having trouble getting his words out. "We sold them to the pound, Ms. Evans--but, but!" He's holding his hands out at me, which I hardly think will stop me--"We put all your stuff in storage until we could find the next of kin! It's all here, we have all of your things!"
"You cold slimy excuse for a human! That's like saying, 'I'm terribly sorry, but I've killed your children. But don't worry, I didn't break your furniture!' What pound?!" I cannot believe this. "When did you sell them?"

3:00PM
At the pound. This is the most depressing place I've ever been. Apparently my landlord dished out my cats for a dollar apiece and called it good. The pound people--and all of them look as if they need a good dose of either Zoloft or cyanide, depending on which would be kinder--are checking to see if they have any of my cats left.

3:02 PM
Two cats. Out of nine, there are two left: Zeppelin, who doesn't have enough intelligence to fill a quarter teaspoon, bless his heart (he's the one who got stuck in the lampshade whilst trying to catch a moth), and the others were shipped down south to a bigger pound.

4:26 PM
I have the landlord cornered again. He's nailed the gate to get behind the desk shut, and I confess I haven't the heart--no, literally, being over sixty really does weaken the old ticker--to haul myself over the counter to strangle him. I'll have to content myself with my vivid imagination and a list of demands that I will expect him to fulfill. And he WILL fulfill them.

4:30 PM
There are no other apartments available. What, one wonders, is the point of surviving an entire library collapsing in burning shambles on top of oneself just to get back and find out your apartment has been rented out and you have no where to live? Answer me that, you prick.

4:31 PM
He has no answer. Very well. I shall just have to move into the library. I haven't been back since I've been in the coma, but I know it's been patched up a bit. It's closed, though; I suppose they realized the futility of letting the place just be run by Macy. Although really, she does a better job than most people would; at least she's properly respectful of the books. Keeps them in line. Scares off people who want to check out books and leave gaping holes on the shelves. Scares of regular people, for that matter.

4:50 PM
The landlord kindly agreed to move all of my things to the library in his hauling van.

4:51 PM
After I threatened to slice him up into bits, put him through a meat grinder, and feed him to my two remaining cats, since I will be too poor to buy cat food for them. Young men like him need a bit of encouragement.

5:00 PM
Ahh, to be in the library at last, to return to my true calling! It's a mess in here. And did Mr. Landlord deign to stay and help the little old lady organize her belongings in the worker's lobby? I think not.

5:01 PM
I shall plot his demise from afar. I shall scheme devilish strategies to make his life a misery. I shall concoct a plan to make him rue the day he was born. No, rue the day that he was conceived! Rue the day his parents met one another! He shall be rueful for everything once I am done with him!

5:09 PM
But first, I shall have tea.

Three Days is an Eternity

2:09 PM
I hate hospitals.

2:15 PM
Loath them. Abhor them. Despise them. Deprecate. Detest, disdain, deride, disparage, disfavor.

2:17 PM
So many words. So little time. I wonder if anyone has noticed quite how many synonyms of 'hate' start with the letter 'D'? I bet you if I used a thesaurus I could have a much longer list.

2:20 PM
Hospitals, apparently, do not have thesauruses. Just cheeky little nurses padding about asking me if I need anything and then refusing to give me what I ask for.

2:22 PM
I think a thesaurus is a perfectly reasonable request. It's a shocking lack that this hospital doesn't even have the most rudimentary of libraries. One of the nurses had to lend me her own personal copy of a book to occupy the dry, empty hours with.

3:00 PM
On top of everything else, the doctor is coming in a few minutes to "check up" on me. There's nothing to check. I am not dead; I've gotten quite good at not being dead, thank-you-so-very much, so if you please I think it's time to be discharged now.

3:07 PM
Here he is now.
"Miss Evans, how are we feeling today?" If there was a true and just god, He would have smote this nitwit where he stands on the basis that he's speaking to me as if I were three years old.
"I don't know how we are feeling today. I'm perfectly well, but I hope you're having a horrible day." That was a partial lie; I feel like I've been steamrollered to the bed. Everything else was true, though.
He's smiling at me. Humoring the spunky little old lady. "We do sound rather more robust than normal, don't we?" Smarmy, rich little twit.
"When are you going to discharge me?" Perhaps if I'm brisk and efficient with him, he'll stop using 'we' as his direct object and resort to being correct in his speech and say 'you.'
No such luck, he's gone off on a dumbed-down lecture of what a 'coma' is and why 'we' can't expect 'us' to recover in only a few short weeks... Why does he have to make recovering a group activity? Is this supposed to build my morale?

3:20 PM
If he keeps going on like this I'll darn well give him something to recover from.

3:34 PM
Better news than I expected; I must endure only three more days of being here, and then I'm free to go home.

3:36 PM
Three; a symbolic number. Everything comes in threes in stories. Except Noah's Arc, where groups of three would have been awkward and extraneous.

3:40 PM
I do get tired easily, but I think it might be a survival mechanism; all these white, surgical walls and the ugly, puce green and pink furniture are encroaching on me, and I'm hooked up to so many IVs that I certainly can't make a break for it; so my body shuts down in pure self preservation.

12:13 AM
And it wakes back up at the most cursed inconvenient times; nothing good is on television at this time of night and I've only got one book--Pride and Prejudice--and I've read it four times already since I woke up from my coma.

12:15 AM
I'm getting a bit prejudiced against it.

12:17 AM
Hahahaha.

1:30 AM
One would think that at my age, sleeping wouldn't be difficult. After all, isn't that one of the things old people are famous for doing? Sleeping? Falling into peaceful dozes not only at night but also in the early afternoon?

1:32 AM
Clearly such peace and tranquility is not for the likes of me. However, I have just figured out how to adjust the bed with the little automagical button. It can make the bed sit up...like so...and then lie flat...like so...

1:40 AM
This is more fun than I think I'd normally find it. I shall stop now before my roommate wakes up and howls for the nurses to complain about me. She is a most unforgiving sick person; I can't move for having her complain that I'm bothering her in some obscure fashion.

1:42 AM
Pitched an absolute fit when she overheard me asking a nurse if I could keep my cats in the room with me.

1:50 AM
In here, three days is going to be an eternity.

Ain't No Hiding Place

5:00 AM
I couldn't sleep in this morning. I woke up and felt...compressed. Like I'd been stuffed in a box and left in the attic. I've opened all the windows, even though it's freezing and damp outside, but my apartment still feels a little stuffy.

5:07 AM
Perhaps it is an omen of deep dark frightening things. The stuffiness, I mean. Yesterday my library was ravished by religious delinquents, today my apartment is stuffy when it's 35 degrees outside. I'm beginning to see a pattern. An ominous pattern.

5:10 AM
Never mind. It's just that my heater's decided to start working again, and of course I had it cranked up to the highest it could go when it was broken as though my turning it up would make a difference (what with it being broken and whatnot). And it has made a difference now, and it appears to keep wanting to make a difference because now it won't turn off.

5:12 AM
Perhaps this is God's way of getting back at me for laughing at the fact that he didn't strike my library with lightening. Bastard.

5:14 AM
Altan Yilmaz is on my black list. Why doesn't God punish heartless jilters as opposed to innocent librarians?

5:30 AM
Tea makes everything a little more bearable. Tea, tea, tea...Good heavens, my dentures fell in the kettle. I'll fish them out with my salad clompers.

6:00 AM
I will brace myself and go to the library in half an hour. I must view the destruction with a brave heart, like Bilbo in "The Hobbit." If ever I die--and I must assume that I will, it seems to happen to everyone else--I want to have that book with me. Perhaps I should start carrying it with me wherever I go, just in case I die suddenly and without warning. Perhaps I'll be hit by a bus on my bike on the way to the library. Or someone will poison my tea. Or Altan Yilmaz will murder me out of tortured guilt he feels every time he sees me because he realizes what a cruel person he was to leave me waiting and he can't stand it any longer and so he'll take a coffee mug to me and bludgeon me to death.

6: 05 AM
And then he'll die of shame. Because he'll have killed me. I wonder what it's like to be murdered. Uncomfortable, I expect.

6:35 AM
I cannot delay it anymore. I'm going to the library to assess the damage. Perhaps I can salvage some books from the pile that they burned. I'm heading out on my bike now.
With my copy of "The Hobbit" in my pocket. You never know, with buses.

6:50 AM
No chance of saving an entire book. There are a few pages scattered here and there, but they're a bit charred. It's all a big pile of gooey ashes that have sort of cemented from yesterday's rain. It's not raining right at the moment, but the sky looks like miso soup broth.

7:00 AM
I almost had a heart attack, coming in here to the library. The shelves are a mess--I think more than half the books were stolen. It makes me sick to look at it.
I need tea.

7:02 AM
Scratch that. The teapot's broken. Die, world.

7:06 AM
Good heavens, there's a dead man on the floor.

7:06 1/2 AM
No such luck. He's asleep, and it's the man who ordered the crazy religious whackjobs to burn my books. Perhaps I should spear him one last time with my umbrella. How dare he sleep in MY library?
"GET UP!"

7:07 AM
That perked him up. He looks affronted. Tough cookies.
"You," he's saying. Well, who else does he expect to find in this library? Besides a few regulars--and they're all weird, every last one of them, all obsessed with one thing or another--Macy and I are really the only ones who are ever here. Surprise, there's a librarian in the library!
"You have no right to be sleeping in here. Out." I'm pointing at the doors, but he doesn't seem to get the message. What is it with these people and their inability to understand simple body language?
He's drawing himself up, as though he's here for some sort of worthy cause. "Ma'am, I'm here to finish my task."
"And I'm here to foil it, you fiend!" I brandished my umbrella and I bared my dentures at him. I have no idea what sort of task he's going to finish, but judging by the disgusting pile of ashes outside, he isn't the sort of person who does any kind of acceptable tasks. Ooh, I should add that to my rules of requirement for entering my library:
#6-->Thou shalt not engage in suspicious activities that involve any kind of god and/or freakish religion.

7:15 AM
He's walloped me! In the stomach! Brute! Walloping an old woman like that! I can barely breath! No, really, I think he's dented something important, I'm heaving for air...
I've thrown up all over the floor, and of course these floors are carpeted, it'll take ages to clean it up...
"You cannot deny the word of God." The worst part is that he sounds nice. I don't like people who are not nice sounding nice. He's so calm. Like I'm not really a problem. I AM a problem, and he WILL deal with me if he thinks he's going to be doing any kind of task in here--
"I was waiting for you to return. You are an instrument of Satan, and you must be purified, along with this building of Sin."

7:19 AM
I'm trapped in here with a complete lunatic. This is why I hate religion. Look what it's DONE to him--"You think your religion justifies you being a psychopath?" I tried to scream that, but all I can do right now is squeak because I haven't quite got my breath back. But I squeaked in a very menacing way. What to do, what to do...Just because I was curious this morning about how it feels to be murdered doesn't mean I actually wanted to try it out--I think I'd best toss that out there in hope that whoever controls these sorts of events takes that into consideration. As depressing as this library looks right now, I'm not ready to die until I've fixed it up again.

7:20 AM
He's coming closer. Time to run away.

7:21 AM
Crawl.

7:21 and a bit AM
Help.

7:22 AM
He's singing again, like last night. Another hymn, I can dredge my memories of it from the church I used to attend so long ago. I'm crawling like mad, but he's got this rather ingenious advantage of being young and able to walk and still having proper use of his lungs.

And he's using them to sing what was a perfectly good Gospel song before he dirtied it with his creepy zeal.

There's no hiding place down here,
there's no hiding place down here;
Well I ran to the rocks to hide my face,
the rocks cried out "No hiding place,
there's no hiding place down here."

And he keeps coming, no matter how madly I crawl across this old carpet. I have to get to my feet, have to do something other than wriggle across the floor like a desperate fish.

7:26 AM
I've managed to get behind the front desk, moving like a soldier trying to avoid gunfire in a movie. And that twit keeps coming and singing, coming and singing...

I'll pitch my tent on cold ground,
I'll pitch my tent on cold ground,
Oh I'll pitch my tent on this cold ground,
and give old Satan one more round,
There's no hiding place down here.

He's going to have to worry about a damn sight more than Satan when I'm through with him.
Plan! Oh, I have a plan! Thank heavens for the inspiration pure panic and desperation spurs into existence! I'll pull the fire alarm bell, right here on the wall, it'll wake up the whole town and I'll be rescued! It's the most annoying fire alarm ever. People are bound to rush over out of sheer fury.

7:30 AM
I've pulled it! Ha! He's covered his ears and jumped back! TAKE THAT!

7:31 AM
He's attacking! Not fair! I pulled the alarm, he should just burst into tears and await his arrest--He's setting the library on fire. "RULE NUMBER SEVEN! DO! NOT! SET MY LIBRARY ON FIRE!"
I'll skewer him with my umbrella if it's the last thing I do!

7:32 AM
It's the last thing I think I'm going to do. He's thrown me into one of the shelves, and the books and cheap flimsy shelves are piled around me--I can't see anything but smoke and all I can hear is the crackling pop of the fire--all that dry paper and wood is going to go up fast, and I am stuck. Well it's a good thing I pulled the alarm, surely they've heard it--surely...

Oh, the devil wears a hypocrite's shoe,
Yeah the devil, he wears a hypocrite's shoe,
The deavil wears a hypocrite's shoe,
If you don't watch out he'll slip it on you,
there's no hiding place down here...

My first order of business will be to rip that man's lungs out when I'm out of here. Violently. I'm having trouble breathing through this smoke, now--what is it you're supposed to do? Stay low to the ground and crawl to safety? Good, because crawling is about all I can do.

7:34 AM
No, I tell a lie--my legs are trapped under a shelf. Crawling is not an option. They better hurry up with that rescue. They do know I'm in here, don't they? I mean, I get here every morning, early. It's what I do.

7:40 AM
It's what I did. Can't breath...the cats...did I feed the cats this morning? My feet are tingling, I think they've gone asleep under the shelves, and I can't move my legs...It's hot in here, is the heater broken?

Ain't no hiding place down here...

His voice was so far away, and it really wasn't the last thing I wanted to hear.

7:42 AM
The siren blared across the cold, damp streets and woke up everyone and his dog--especially the dogs. The canines howled at the sound and the growing stench of smoke that hung stiffly in the humid air. It took a while, but people crawled out of their beds, irate and ready to shoot whoever set off the alarm.
Some people gathered at the library, which had smoke billowing out of its crevices. A man was standing outside, singing. Not very well, but it was a catchy song, for a hymn.

Over My Dead Body

12:09 AM
I have waited up all night. Mr. Yilmaz did not come to fix my heater.

12:10 AM
I fed the dosa to the cats.

7:00 AM
I got to the library at 6:30 this morning. I felt a bit restless. If Mr. Yilmaz DARES show his face on these streets with his stupid coffee and his stupid accent, then I shall set him on fire. With a flamethrower.

7:02 AM
And throw his crispy remains under a bus.

7:06 AM
There is a group of people trying to get into the library. They seem rather excitable; how odd. No one around here gets this excited about books.
"The Library is closed." They aren't paying attention to me. I guess I'll have to go and order them off the property.
"The Library is CLOSED." They can see me now--at least, they're pointing at me and shouting--but they aren't leaving. I'll just open the door and--
They've broken through the glass of the door! I'm going to be murdered. This is the end. It wasn't enough that God sentence me to a jilted, broken heart. He had to have me sliced to death by an angry mob armed with broken glass. Death by the glass of my own library. The irony is astonishing.

7:10 AM
How dare they push an old woman like myself over like that! What if I was terribly frail? What if I had osteoporosis and they had snapped my brittle bones? Do they care? Who are these maniacs? I would ask, but they aren't very approachable.

7:12 AM
They're stealing books! MY books! The books that are supposed to be in the library! It's not a case of just a gap here and there--they're running off with whole shelves of books from the World Religions and Science sections. I will not stand for this!
So I'll just stay here under this study table until they've gone away and then call the police. With any luck the police will be the sort of neanderthals that are armed with cattle prods and are willing to use them against dangerous book thieves.

7:13 AM
They're singing...hymns? Yes... Hymns. Old ones.

"What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jeeee-sus./
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jeee-sus./
Oh, precious is the flow
that makes me white as snoooow./
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jeeesus..."/

That brings back memories of the Southern Baptist Church. What are they doing out there?

What can wash away my sin?

They're piling books up behind the building. The chickens are nowhere to be seen; they've probably fluttered off in fear. Silly birds are smarter than I am.

Nothing but the blood of Jeee-sus.

I've seen films that have scenes like this; historical documentaries that come on in the evening on P.B.S. Books piled in huge masses; "unacceptable" books. The Nazis did book burnings; so has every other ignorant group.
Well whoever these bastards are, they're about to burn my books while they sing about their God, like it's his will to destroy knowledge.
Over my dead body. God's gonna have to tear down the whole damn library before I give up. See if his pathetic little mob of supporters can march seven times around my library.

What can make me whole again?

I'll tear them apart.

Nothing but the blood of Jeee-sus.

7:25 AM
I've got my umbrella. And an envelope opener. There's nothing else for it. CHARGE! I won't actually shout that, obviously, because I'm going to try and appeal to their better nature and howling and spearing their leader with an umbrella might make a bad impression.
"Excuse me? Excuse me, you can't burn those books. They're the property of the Public." I jabbed the man closest to me with my finger. It's taking a bit of effort not to prod him with the envelope opener.
The little prick is looking down at me like I'm sort of fungus growing on the ground. "Ma'am," he's saying, "We are the Public, and we're spreading the will of Gaw-ud. Please stay back. We're cleansing Satan from this town."
"Cleansing Satan? Are you an idiot?! They're books! Written by people!" I grabbed at one of the books off the pile--Buddha: A Journey of Haiku. "This is a bunch of poetry," I howled, but the man snatched the book back and threw it back into the pile.
"Light it!" He sounds and looks like a rabid vulture. If vultures could get rabies...
"Don't you DARE get a single candle near my--" but I was cut off as another man poured a gallon of gasoline on top and a young woman with a frighteningly benevolent smile on her face threw a lit match into the whole mess.
FWOOOM!!
More than anything else, I can feel the exothermic reaction of the hundreds, thousands, millions of pages, expelling light, heat, and sound--the skin on my face is stretched tight from the sudden influx of heat.

7:32 AM
"AIIIIIIIIIIGH!" I shall kill them all! Starting with this nitwit who ordered the burning! I swung my umbrella at him and conked him on the head.
A flash of light shot through the air, followed by a boom that rocked my arthritic bones. The mosque is on fire! It's been struck by lightening...
"HA!" I pointed up at the sky. "YOU MISSED, YOU MISSED!" God missed my library! He can have deluded minions try to burn my books, but he can't even hit the right building with his lightening! The Universe must be on my side! Perhaps this sudden pouring of rain will put out the fire!

7:35 AM
No such luck. There's too much gasoline for the fire to go out yet.
There's Macy! Macy! Oh, I'm so glad to see her--
"MACY! Macy, help! They're burning the books!" I abandoned my whalloping of the man to wave my arms at her and beckon. She's coming! And running at another of the men! I knew she cared about the library books. SHE'S TACKLED HIM! YESSS!
"Good, Macy, keep it up--" Oh dear. Her hair's on fire. "Macy, just put your head under one of the gutters--" She's not listening, the silly girl. Nevermind. Someone will sort her out. I need to finish teaching these ignoramouses that books are for being neatly lined on shelves, not burning.

7:37 AM
The prostitutes from the antique shop have gone insane. They're out here in bathrobes and little else--and by little I mean...nothing...--and they're flinging alchohol onto the flames! FEEDING THE FIRE! There are too many of them. Too many...

Oh, precious is the flow,
that makes me white as snooow.

And they won't stop singing--they've thrown a couple rocks at me, but no matter what, they won't stop... The homeless men have joined in, too. The lyrics aren't difficult. Perhaps that's why Christianity succeeded so well; easy lyrics, easy tune, something you can learn when you're drunk as a drowned pansy.

It's flashing again--lightening? No--it's camera flashes. What are those little Japanese people doing? Good heavens. They're from that tour bus by Jorri Rae's. What kind of person would come here as a tourist? I have half a mind to beat them with my umbrella for treating this like some kind of performance. Why aren't they helping?! All they can do is stand there and take flash picture after flash picture, capturing this crime forever in pouring rain. What a contrast. Roaring flames while it's raining cats and dogs.

No other fount I know...

I can't see Macy. I'm here by myself, swinging my broken umbrella for a pile of books that don't love me any more than my own daughter does. I'm soaking wet, my umbrella's spokes are all bent out of shape, and yet the fire is still burning and they're still singing.
One of the prostitutes is pouring a whole bottle of whiskey on the fire. What can I do but watch the flames dance higher, reflecting eerily off of individual raindrops, the crackle of the swiftly incinerating books blending into the violent hiss of rain smacking against the pavement? My shoulders can heave and I can sob and I can scream at them all I want, and they probably wouldn't even be able to tell in this downpour.

7:42 AM
My umbrella is useless now. It's too broken. I'll leave it in the dumpster behind the library. I'm going home.

Nothing but the blood of Jeee-sus.

I've Been Plotting

5:33 AM
I still feel a little sick, but I must bravely forge through the day. It is my duty as a public servant of the library. People depend upon me. I must be a good example.

5:40 AM
I hate the world.

6:45 AM
I shall have to go by the grocery store today after work; all I have is crackers, cheese, apples, and some canned food. And milk and tea, of course. If Mr. Yilmaz sees the inside of my refrigerator whilst he's fixing the heater in the living room--you never know, with foreign men--then he might think I'm strange.

6:50 AM
On the other hand, he's foreign. Perhaps cheese and crackers and apples is a normal diet in Turkland.

6:55 AM
Turkey. Took a moment for my geography knowledge to kick in. Either way, I'd best just get some food. In case he's hungry. I ought to be hospitable. After all, he will be fixing my heater.

7:oo AM
Good lord, Zeppelin--one of the cats--is stuck in the lampshade and he hisses at me if I try to get near.
Ah. I see what's happened. There was a moth flitting about around the light bulb and Zeppelin...oh dear. He's much too fat. Hence his name, of course--perhaps "Blimp" would have been more appropriate, but somehow that sounded... insulting.

7:03 AM
He's broken my lamp! Furry bastard! I tried to help him out, but nooooooo, he had to go and break the dratted lamp! And he's still stuck in the lampshade.

7:12 AM
I have succeeded in wrestling Zeppelin from the lampshade. I just grabbed the lampshade itself and shook it like mad and he--eventually--popped out. Now I have to clean up the mess and get to work on time.

12:40 PM
Work has been boring. The only (relatively) high point was when a woman named Marie came in and returned Lord of the Flies. She was in here yesterday, when she checked out the book, but she doesn't strike me as the reading type. I tried to offer to help her find some book that might interest her, but she said no and left.

12:43 PM
I've been plotting dinner for tonight just in case Mr. Yilmaz stays for dinner.

12:45 PM
Which he damn well better, because I've spent all morning plotting and it's going to take all afternoon to cook it. I've written down some foreign-looking recipes from a cookbook I got in the World section, and I'm still looking. I hope he appreciates my cultural sensitiveness.

1:12 PM
Couscous? Idly? Dosa looks good. I'll make dosa. It's Indian food, but India is fairly close to Turkey. It's on the same continent, at least.

3:20 PM
I've left the library to Macy and I'm getting the ingredients for dosa. I hope it's foreign enough.

Be Still, My Beating Heart

9:00 AM
I woke up with a cold this morning. I've got puffy eyes, the sniffles, and I feel like a hedgehog is nesting in my throat. I entertained the idea of skipping work, but I have a lot of paperwork to get through. The last time I had a buildup of paperwork I put it through the shredder and told my boss that my cats got at it, but I don't think I can do that again. He might get a bit suspicious.

9:10 AM
Even tea isn't helping much. I bet having such a cold, damp apartment has made me ill. I would sue, but that would call attention to me. My daughter might find me.

Macy is being blessedly quiet today. She did sort of madly hop into the library in order to avoid the still-lingering chickens in the front yard, but I can overlook a few oddities.

10:30 AM
A young man just wandered in here. He looks vaguely familiar; a recurring library visitor, I expect.
"Have you got any books on two?" He doesn't look like he quite knows where he is. Not that I can complain--I regularly get lost in the grocery store. All those aisles. It could happen to anyone.
Er. Two? Two what? "Well, we've got One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. If you're interested in that kind of thing." I very much doubt he is. He looks a trifle old for such books.
"No, just the number two." Charming. A lunatic. Doesn't this town have any normal people in it? Besides myself, of course.
I feel quite huffy that he's so interested in the number two. "The number three is better, you know. There are plenty of books on the significance of the number three. It's a religious number--you know, Father Son Holy Ghost and whatnot--and it's traditional in fairy tales. You never hear the story about the Two Little Pigs, or Goldilocks and the Two Bears. Three is the perfect number." He's not listening to me. How can I tell? He's left, that's how. He's gone and wandered off into the shelves. Well!
Two indeed. I suppose I should have recommended A Tale of Two Cities.

10:45 AM
Except I hate Charles Dickens. I refuse to recommend him to anyone.

11:03 AM
I'm taking a break. The library's quiet today, so I doubt there will be any emergencies in my absence. I like it back here in the employee lounge; no one is allowed back here but Macy and I and my boss, and he never shows up unless he's angry. I can look out the window to the back of the library from here; usually it's just a view of the empty parking lot (a scene of depression), but it's got the carnival now (a scene that invokes suicidal tendencies). I can see a girl in a big, horrendously yellow raincoat getting onto the ferris wheel; normally I don't single out people to watch like this, but it's hard not to single her out. She's like a single ray of sunlight in a dungeon; the yellow against the stark grey sky is brighter than anything else outside. The gaudy lights and colors of the carnival have been dulled with splattered mud and grey light and fog; even the royal purple tent of the so-called medium looks less royal and more like an old bruise. Uffda, I'm making myself ill.

11:10 AM
And I'm sick to begin with. I think I'll go back to the library counter now.

5:30 PM
I ran into Mr. Yilmaz in the elevator and he agreed to fix my heater. Wonderful!

5:31 PM
He's coming at six tomorrow.

5:32 PM
Oh god. What will I wear?

5:33 PM
I shall not forget to put in my dentures. I shall not forget to put in my dentures. I shall not forget to put in...

5:50 PM
My dentures.

12:00 AM
I can't sleep. Be still, my beating heart.

12: 04 AM
Only not really still. As in, dead still. Dead being the operative adjective.

Definitely not a Pigeon

9:00 AM
Well, here I am at the library. For once, Macy arrived on time; she was here in time to help me ready the library for opening. I hope she makes a habit of it.

9:10 AM
No one in the library. Except, of course, Macy, but right now she's pacing at one of the windows and looking up at the densely clouded sky, as though hoping for Jesus to pop out of the clouds and say 'yes, Macy. It's all true. Repent and believe!'

9:23 AM
Except I don't believe Macy is talking to God. What's she saying? Something about friends forgetting her.

9:25 AM
I'm bored. I think I'll drink some tea.

12:25 PM
Macy left to go out on her lunch break, but she came back rather quickly, running like a madwoman. She kicked up her heels off the ground very high and slammed the library door after her. I would scold her, but my mouth is full of cheese and crackers. Ah well. She looks like something just tried to eat her.

12:28 PM
Checked out the window for suspicious, man-eating animals. So far, no Godzilla is visible. I think Macy just had a nervous breakdown, poor girl.

2:45 PM
Drank 2 liters of hot tea.

2:46 PM
More importantly, I've gone to the bathroom more often than I think must be healthy.

3:00 PM
There's a bird on the window sill outside the library.

3:01 PM
Quite a large bird, actually. I haven't got my glasses on at the moment, so I can't make it out very well.

3:02 PM
Perhaps it is a pigeon.

3:02 PM
I hate pigeons.

3:05 PM
I'm going to bang on the window pane and make it go away.

3:05 PM
That is definitely not a pigeon, now that I get closer to it.

3:06 PM
Good heavens, it's a chicken. And there are about five more in the ratty little scrap of grass in front of the library, pecking away like mad. I suppose all this wet weather really brings up the earthworms; a chicken's smorgasbord.
But that is not the point; the point is, there's a posse of chickens in front of my library. And the second point is... Why is there a group of chickens in front of my library?
"Macy, come here a moment." As weird as that girl is, she might know where the chickens came from. Or maybe because she's so weird she might know. "Look--there are chickens in the front yard."
Macy looks rather terrified. "They tried to get at me when I was outside before! Why are they there? "
Drat. My source of neighborhood information has failed me. She also appears to be hanging onto sanity by a thread. But I'd best respond. "I haven't the foggiest."
"Foggiest what?"
These young people. Don't even know a commonplace idiom. "I haven't the faintest idea," I translated out of the goodness of my heart.
"Well, should we do anything about them?" I can detect a note of worry in Macy's voice. Perhaps she thinks I will make her do something about them.
"No, just leave them. They're only chickens." And even mad birds like chickens have the right to roam free. Just as much right as an old woman, I should say.

3:10 PM
Macy's gone to hide in the Astronomy Section.

3:30 PM
Hahaha. Chickens move in a funny way, jerking their legs in time with their heads, like little wound-up clockwork toys. Bokbok. Bokbok. It's fun to make a chicken voice and strut about like one of the silly birds.

3:32 PM
I should stop doing this in public. One of the people in the Romance Section gave me a funny look.