facsimiles
Contrary to the still, early morning atmosphere, dust particles danced in tiny sun rays filtering through drawn blinds. Byungjoon found that the first wave of visitors often hadn’t the patience to deal with full blast sunshine. Bustling in, arms brimming with papers and thermoses full of coffee, they all seemed at their wits end. Frankly, he was amazed some of them kept going with all that apparent stress day after day and sometimes even night after night. Around ten he’d draw the covers up and let day prevail over bookshelves and less hunched figures.
Until then he was free to occupy these first few hours with banal paperwork and blank stares into the void. Coincidentally, the time it took to go through the overnight drop-offs happened to be about how long it took his consciousness to catch up with corporeal form. Indulging in a sip from his own cup of strong coffee with just a dollop of cream, pitch hues scanned the usual crowd and smattering of irregular faces out of habit. Though the poor souls rarely had need of his assistance, he felt a silent camaraderie with them. These people had an appreciation for quiet and the fervent desire that their lives were different, if that dull set to their eyes was any indication.
Shooting a furtive glance over his shoulder, the librarian pulled up a fresh game of solitaire on the aging circulation terminal. Stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, he settled in for a slow morning. The day, it would seem, had other intentions however. As doors swung open, a polite smile aimed at the new arrival. Surprise shot through a slowly awakening brain as he registered someone distinctly out of the early morning normalcy. Offering a nod in greeting, attention shifted back to the screen while callused digits double clicked on the ace of diamonds and realized his game was already over.
The boring bibliophile spared a small sigh and began pulling volumes from the overnight bin, their hard covers still bearing a chill. Approximately three in (including a copy of Parallel Lives he hadn’t even known they had) and Byungjoon had succumbed to auto-pilot function as daydreams of a vastly more exciting existence played through active imagination.
@midori20s