I
close my book. How many students have fallen asleep on the top floor? Only to
be awaken by their subconscious whispers. I appreciated being so high up. You
could stare down at everyone, from a safe distance. They looked like little cockroaches
scrambling into each other afraid to communicate in the captured silence of
this library. This type of chaos amused me simply because I was no part of the
mess. It was great.
My mother told me she would come here during
the most chaotic of times, finals week. To study of course, however, after
several sleepless nights the library transformed into my mothers bedroom.
Surrounded by hundreds of others who too had made this very library their home.
You
ever wonder how many books, how many pages, how many words exist, here, in this
building? How many ideas and dreams have been shaped? You ever feel nauseous
from fear? That's how I feel. I've been spending way too much time on
the top floor looking at the ground. My mind can't handle the distance.
Everything feels so far away. So minuscule. But I thought I liked the
distance. I thought I enjoyed being invisible to the world around me. This is
true. What terrifies me is how so many people can be on the first floor. So
susceptible to the ignorance of the hundreds of strangers who wonder into this
building. I suppose I do find joy in looking down on my peers. I feel
powerful and grand just like this library.
I
remember when I started kindergarten, the end seemed so far away. During
recess I always got exhausted, from skipping rope outside. They told me to sit
down and breathe. So there I was sprawled out on my back in the
middle of the court yard. I was at bliss being in the center. But the way my
heart was thumping uncontrollably chaotic scared the death out of me. Although,
back than I knew how to manage my heart.
All I had to do was press down where I felt the pounding. Until, the
butterfly inside my heart flew away. Than I knew everything was going to be
alright.
Unlike
my mother, I could never make a library like this my home. Too many people with
too many stories. My heart and mind would become way too overwhelmed. I would
be destroyed in a matter of minutes. So for now, I'll stay on top, where I
belong. And at the end of the day, I'll race down the hundreds of steps to join
the rest of the people in the library. But,
only for a second. A moment. So that I can go back home where my heart can
breathe and my mind can sleep.
