Library

Dear S:

Today I finally got the chance to visit our library. A very new building with spacious lawn outside and almost equally vast space inside. You can sense the newness everywhere. Some workers were busy installing arrays of book shelves, besides of which lining along the walls are numbers of cartons heavily loaded with books. On each carton is written large in red ink the specific location of shelf where the books will be seated in near future. Not many people were here, partly because the unsettled current state of the library cannot serve well its users who need some quiet corners to rest or read. But I still like the place for its not yet being fully populated.

Walking to and fro between different shelves with books, I felt comfortable and humble at once. Even with the not so voluminous a collection, the books there still bespeak the vast amount of human knowledge that overwhelms a single human mind. How can I not be awe-stricken by them? I leafed through lines of lines of books, with a list in my hand, checking each book’s relevance to my interests, reading a few pages to taste a bit what kind of world the book will unfold. Sometimes u cannot help thinking that one in fact does not need thousands of books to feel both humbled and excited. Only a few of them will do.

Of course there’s some labor involved. After I walked out of the library back to my office, I found my arms aching badly. Books’ burden caused that. Maybe the burden goes farther than that. In addition to the physical ache from carrying heavy books, the mental ache will soon ensue. Sitting on my chair staring at their temporary companionship, I know they demand that my mind start kicking at once.

For their stay here is short, and short too is mine in this world.

Brison Cafe

The shop is on the second floor. Looking through its window into the garage (a parking lot under the overpass) where taxis, sedans, and tow trucks as well as a few fork lifts are lined up in opposite. Don't know if this is where the towed cars are temporarily parked, waiting for their owners to claim. The space is bordered by green fences which block the view of people if they walk down the street. But the shop's second-floor height gives visual access to this rectangular space. I'm wondering how much space one would need to build a world of its own. Such a space, an enclosure, like an inland forgotten by the bustling city life, a space lost in the torrents of this busy city. For those who live or work in that space, they may only need be protected by the fences to perceive their world merely as thus, self-reliant, self-sufficient, as long as they don't walk outside. What will it look like if people live or work there? I cannot help wondering.

On the walls of the shop, shadows of the passing cars on the overpass are dancing to and fro from time to time. Clouds out there sit quietly on the upper brim of the window pane. Blue, white, no sound. The air in the shop is replete with heavy exhaled cigarette smoke. Almost can't breathe, causing certain headache. But there's something enticing and alluring in the smell. Something ruinous, yet ecstatic. Likely a smell of a disjointed life.

I'm waiting for a person whose absence in front of me will be discontinued and the empty seat, occupied shortly after. Can't imagine what will be happening between us a few minutes later. A troubling relation, somewhat dissuading me to go on. Many things remain vague and obscure to me. Feel like being cursed--by frivolities of life.