The shelves fill me with reminders of how little I know. The aura of a thousand pages swims around my head. It leaks in through each sense: the sound, or lack there of. The sight of a word, upon a cover, beneath which are someone’s ideas, research, memories, opinions, art, or just plain nonsense. The taste of the knowledge is and isn’t. My tongue is dry from focus and wet from a water fountain. Always a seesaw between the two. If I am hungry, it is not a need. It can wait. It has to.
Just adjacent is smell – constant, subtle, and somehow still profound. On a clear day, I detect hints of paper between puffs of conditioned air. The shelves are new and one day they will smell. I hope I am present for the day they do. If I am lucky, my time here will be constant and I will be nose-blind to the measured change.
“If I am lucky.”
Perhaps these are the wrong words.
“If I am determined.”
This place may yet bring me my best. I need only give it my time. A fair trade.
What time is it again?