Creepazoid with his red Converse shoes, jeans, greasy expression and suit jacket. What’s in his brain? A predilection for younger women? Desperate mother of three in search of a job, pages through the newspaper and sees no WANT ads that fit her resume. What’s the world coming to? She already sold her car and wanders Telford with a backpack. She reads the newspaper wondering why the world is so miserable, but she’s tough and knows that she’ll get by somehow. Brown cap, Jean jacket, jeans and orange T-shirt. She’s hunting for money to add to her meaning.
Fat balding man reads the news. Is he looking for a job, too? He needs new glasses, but he probably can’t afford them on his health insurance, if he has any at all. He’s comfortable in his dark green sweater, but not in his life, which he sometimes feels is winding down. "Oh, God, what am I going to do now?" wonders the man with his beige jacket, glasses, white almost-gone hair and thin fingers. He’s settled down in his life, he doesn’t feel so bad, but when there’s no good news in the paper, it makes him want to cry.
Desperate mother of three walks out with her backpack. It’s two-fifty-seven: Does she have to pick up the kids at school? I wonder if those chores of love she does ever make her want to kill herself? Literati or businessman, sitting in the corner—which is it? He’s reading a small paper, typing on his laptop computer, and thinking—hard. Maybe later on tonight, he’ll actually get some sleep. Maybe he won’t have to take any pills to knock him out. Maybe he’ll have nice dreams. There’s a kid that looks like a mix between a boy and girl, head in his or her hands, sleeping. Read a book, put it down—waiting. Nothing left to do but wait. Perhaps he or she left school before it was over, and now waits until its time to walk home, and trick the parents into believing the day was attended as usual. There’s a strange middle-aged man with an odd-shaped body and bifocals. He’s looking at the business section. On a Tuesday, you’d think these people would be at work—if they had jobs. They all seem to be searching. The man’s gross moist mouth works awkwardly against chips embedded in his broken teeth, then drinks deeply from his Root Beer bottle. Crunch, crunch… He craves the saltiness, and then the saccharine delight. Old woman, retired, white hair, also wearing glasses. Am I the only one in this room with perfect eyesight? She’s probably reading the paper because she has nothing better to do, and likely walked here from the Lutheran home down the street, where old people who have no families and no money go to die. I am glad that I’m not her. Why aren’t any of these people reading books? This is a library. Why do they all wish to bury themselves in the sordid news of the everyday? Creepazoid crosses one leg over the other and thinks. He seems to enjoy the Sports section. I had entertained some small hope that he might be more intelligent than he looks. To my right, somewhat handsome young college student clicks buttons on his laptop. Why is he here? Maybe he’s not in college at all. Maybe he works for Site Catz and designs layouts. Creepazoid examines each individual, reading expressions like he reads the paper. I read his. The man to my right looks too old to be in college, but young enough to still have a life. I hope he’s happy. I hope he’s not miserable like some of the people in this room might be. I hope he’s not strange, like Creepazoid. How funny, the faces you see in the library. I could go to a bar and read similar expressions, only rather than read the paper, they’d all be reading behaviors, examining other people’s movements for sexual attraction, mutual understanding, or a need to belong. Literati scratches his armpit by delving beneath his plaid shirt. Horrific! Some library lady goes about hanging up Fall decorations, and talking to herself. She’s only a few feet away and I have to wonder, "What would she say if she knew I was writing about her?" Writers are almost as disturbing as stalkers. We sit here, observe, and we write about people when they don’t know that we’re looking. It’s not any different than sneaking into people’s yards and photographing them through their living room windows—is it? How funny, how odd, the way humanity shapes itself around everyday activities, as though work, relationships and little details really matter. I consider the fact that everyone in this room could die at the very same moment, and then where would we be? If Creepazoid knew that he had thirty seconds to live, what would he do? He puts his paper away and leaves the library, hands in his pockets. If he knew he was going to die, would he have wasted all that time reading the Sports section? If the old man with the white hair knew that his life were over, would he even bother looking for a job? If the middle-aged man chewing on chip fragments realized that he was about to have a stroke, would he rethink his entire day and instead, take a day trip and enjoy the beauty of nature? Or—if all of these people knew that they were about to die—would they not even bother? Would they stay in bed, and waste away, and wait? And would they blame it all on God and expect swift retribution? No one can tell. And the middle-aged man, after finishing his chips and root beer, laughs as he reads a funny article, black-framed glasses resting on a hooked nose. This moment in time, frozen, for all to read in the future, is all that we have. And perhaps we are all about to die. Now. | 
