How Many Liberians Does It Take…
There is a man so enormous that the earth shook with each step.
And by the earth I mean the library.
Can I define slow?
Each step was a page. 10 steps were a chapter.
Slow is fine. Enormous is fine. However, he is a Medusa in disguise. The bitch, using the flesh of obesity to torture us open-hearted librarians.
So we transform to actors.
We must look busy;
too busy to look up
because if he catches your eyes as he oozes by, then he has you, locked into a mundane conversation. I wish I wasn’t a participant. I wish I could sit on the bench by the door and watch us looking so intently in any direction other than at him. And he just desperately needs one of us to look at him so he can talk. Please someone just look at him so he can tell you how hot it is outside. I’ve been caught by him.
It might be the only time I’ve contemplated suicide.
One time I saw him somewhere other than the library. A laundry mat. I could only be more surprised if I saw him on a treadmill.
I saw Medusa smiling through all his flesh as he tried to make eye contact, but I am fast as shit.
I had already grabbed my clothes and headed out the doors before he could ask if worked at the library.
The next time he saw me he said, “I saw a girl that looked just like you at the laundry mat. You know how I knew it wasn’t you?”
“How?”
“She had tattoos.”
My co-workers looked at me. I nodded and said “alright.”
They looked at him with the gravest of expressions. One co-worker nodded to reinforce my response. But we could all feel my tattoos burning under my sweater and long skirt. I prayed to them then. “Don’t give me away now tattoos. Don’t give me away now.”
Our director thought it was a good idea to get “A CONE OF SILENCE” so people can talk on their cell phones without leaving the library.
He got stuck in it. It took several librarians to pull him out. I am not sure how many but once I know I can perfect the joke that is only beginning to formulate in my mind.
