Don't get out of the boat!

Don’t get out of the boat. Or don’t get out of your office. Some had gotten out, way out. For them, their was no turning back. For me, well it would be a long week before I’d find out.

The air outside was thick and heavy with moisture the clouds pregnant with a storm they just couldn’t deliver. It was quiet. Yes to quiet. I could see faculty parking spot after parking spot full of student cars just like it was a normal workday. Slowly trudging through the darkness were misshapen forms of youth lost to hours of parties, carrying huge loads of books and then staying up into the depths of the night to fulfill the inevitable reckoning of assignments and tests that were due the next day. How could people who were once human turn to such a wretched existence?

I entered my sanctuary. It was a balmy 78 outside and a brisk 35 in my office. I gritted my teeth as the cold air bit into my face, but I knew it would keep me sharp and alert, and that a librarian needed, that extra edge, that extra hardness forged in adversity in order to survive.

It was time to leave the office.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw I doubt that I ever cold be. Everywhere their were students reading text books. Studying, and eating. Laptops sprouted on the tables like clumps of Jonquils in the spring. Their blackened tendrils creeping along the tables, floors, and into the walls, waiting to ensnare the foot of the unwary, waiting to trap and devour them, like some kind of monster from a cheesy sci fi novel.

The binary gods had smiled upon me that evening. My computer and monitors booted right up and connected to that sea of bits and bytes that had no meaning and yet has all meaning. My laptop reached through the air and negotiated with another of its kind. They would again agree to talk to each other. All of the shining idols on my pressed wood alter with their multitude of symbolic icons sprang to life once more. My sacrifice to the priests of the systems temple had once again been accepted.

Others did not have such luck, as I walked the floor I saw scenes of frustration. Scenes of people who could not figure out why when they "mashed the button", the network did not come on. Some, I could help. Others were left to continue in their suffering until the night had once again ended and those that could help rose again to tell them to check their cables.

Their were other scenes that will haunt me throughout my days and beyond. Things I dare not share for fear of harming the faint of heart. I saw students using government documents, and if that is not fearsome enough the documents were on microfiche.

I grow weary. I most look to other tasks now and steel myself for the time when I must again enter the breach.

R Philip Reynolds

Librarian