by HK Savage
Ch. 5
Ah, September in Minnesota. It was seventy-five degrees, sticky and not even lunch time when I walked into the overly air-conditioned library the next day for my shift. I wasn’t supposed to start until one, but I’d planned some time to wander around doing some digging. The question was where to start. Do I go to the occult and paranormal or try to find the book Stephen suggested?
Heidi wasn’t working, so I slid past the front counters unnoticed. I had met some other student workers the last time I was in, but no one who really wanted to chat like Heidi. She was so cool. Just as the tiny bubble of excitement began to fill my breast I felt it fizzle as I reminded myself of the painful reality of that scenario. No, just like everywhere else I’d gone to school before, I would have to endure the reputation of being cold and stuck up or weird. That was okay, I tried to reassure myself, I wanted a few hours to myself anyway. Just the books and me.
My first stop was the computer area to find out what we had for cataloged books. After a few minutes of searching our library records, I printed off some promising titles. Fortunately, with my newfound knowledge of our fine library’s organizational system, finding my selections was pretty easy.
I had followed Stephen’s suggestion and looked first for the Jenkins book. My curiosity had been working on me for several days now and I couldn’t get it out of my mind, but considering the guy who’d recommended it, a part of me had already written it off as a joke. Of course, when I went to find the book, it was checked out. I wrote a note on the sheet I’d printed out to reserve the book when it was returned. Much to my surprise, as I wrote a note, a small flash of disappointment reached my consciousness; I rolled my eyes at my silliness. On to my next book idea; it had come up below Jenkins and it was a religious text from the Italian Renaissance on the subject of detection of spirits residing in unsuspecting human hosts. Not quite as heart fluttering, but one never knew when a nugget of truth could be found while wading through the bizarre and outdated. Book found, I wandered over to a work cubby under some bright lights. There were no windows here in the basement, making it completely dependent upon the fluorescents for light despite the sun outside. Upstairs, the floor plan was open, airy, and full of windows, but down here, where the old books were, the sunlight had been banned. Heidi had explained that it was for the protection of the books; too much light would damage them. It made sense although it was a bummer since too many hours in the artificially bright lighting made my head hurt.
The book took some sorting to get through due to the fact that it was translated well over three hundred years ago. Although it was in English, the sentence structure and wording was old and it always seemed to take my brain some time to get into the flow of older translations. When I was reading classical literature, I usually had to set aside at least an hour so that my brain could get itself into the rhythm of the book. I always felt like that gave me a better flavor for what the author was really saying and I wouldn’t miss anything.
It seemed like no time at all had passed when I looked at my watch to see I had only about four minutes to get upstairs to the front counters and make my presence known. I stowed the book under my arm to check out before I started my shift.
My shift again passed quickly and I worked without seeing Henry or Heidi, which was just as well because I had quite a few messes to clean up. It seemed some Media class was teaching their students how to locate periodicals by looking them up in our systems. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem so concerned about putting them back according to our system. It took me over an hour to untangle the mess before I was able to head back downstairs to help Ben, the shy but nice enough Sophomore Heidi and I had worked with the last time. He was dealing with more Seminary student cleanup.
We worked in Religious texts another few hours and before I knew it, it was time to head home. I wasn’t really hungry and didn’t have anyone expecting me so I returned to my friend, the Italian book, who was telling me some interesting facts about inner demons and our turmoil, which could be handled with some prayer and leeches. Nothing like a little blood loss to clear up one’s soul or liver, or whatever else ails you. Thank goodness for modern medicine. I don’t think I would have had the stomach for the old ways. And with a glass of water on my nightstand I settled in with the old clerics’ superstitions for a few more hours before sleep finally won me for the night.