A Night At the Library

By Richa Srivastava

It’s a cold winter Friday evening, in the month of January. New Year celebratory vibes have just started to dwindle. Snow now covers most parts of jolly old London and fulfils its annual promise of fascinating the bystanders who care to spare a few moments to relish its beauty. The halls of the university corridors are moist from shoeprints, and it is at one such patch that Rebecca almost fails to prevent herself from seeing the ceiling when she did not intend to.

Heading back from the pub, all that she wanted was to get a spot at the beloved university library. She’d hoped that since it wasn’t really exam time, finding a quaint spot may not be much of an arduous task. But she couldn’t be more wrong. The library was bustling with students and mumbled chatter. Study groups sat in one humungous common space of the library floor, their “whispered” discussions integrating into a buzz of high decibels, reverberating in the high ceiling monument. The clicking of keyboards in a corner row along with the beeping and dragging noise of the inkjet printers added beautifully to the cacophonous symphony of the perfect backdrop that Rebecca was so adoringly habituated to.

Feeling a sense of calm and seeing that her regular spot is not occupied, Rebecca hastily puts her books & laptop down and lets her body almost fall on the library chair. It had been a good, energizing day. After having spent the better half of her evening with her colleagues, she was now ready for some personal time, and what better place to spend it than the library.

She lets her mind wander for a bit. Away from home and friends, Rebecca had now started to feel a void which unexpectantly even her studies were not able to fill. Perhaps she wasn’t paying attention to anything or anyone other than her assignments, and maybe it was time to do otherwise. She lets out a long, quiet sigh and probably the first time ever looks around the library.

Half-hopingly, she sees the same face looking towards her, that she’d noticed, doing the same, many times before from the corner of her eyes, except this time she gets a hold of it, off-guard. For the first time she smiles back, holding a longer than usual eye-contact. The “boy in the university hoodie” falters and almost drops the book he is reading, giving her a nervous smile. She had remembered him reading the same book almost every single night, “The Selfish Gene”.

The boy continues to look at her, except sitting up straighter now. She goes back to her reading, her mind somewhere wondering if she’s given him a good enough clue, a permission of sorts to actually talk to her. They continue to glance at each other every couple of minutes, passing smiles and exchanging glances while oscillating their attention back to reading.

A couple of hours pass. Rebecca puts down her pen from jotting points in a notebook for her report. She stretches her arms and makes up her mind to fetch herself a coffee. Almost on cue, a brown corrugated paper mug is placed in front of her. The “boy in the university hoodie” smiles down at her and after ascertaining that her clue worked, walks back towards his workstation. Rebecca suddenly finds herself wondering why she hadn’t smiled back at him earlier, almost amusing herself in the process. Thinking of thanking him in her own way later, she takes a sip of this cherished cup of coffee, while allowing herself to truly gaze at him.

A look of calm over his face, his brows slightly furrowed while he concentrates on the text, playing with a pen in between his fingers and intermittently looking at his phone too, the “boy in the university hoodie” actually managed to capture Rebecca’s attention longer than she’d wanted. But alas, this was a welcomed interruption for her. Taking the last sip of her coffee, she is surprised at the joy she could experience by just letting go for a bit.

It’s close to daybreak. The chatter in the library has now waned to a few scattered whispers, with the numbers coming down to less than half and slumber-like state also taking its toll on most of the remaining occupants. Rebecca, after managing to have a productive night long study session, while continuing to keep this mild library “romantic” encounter alive through smiles and glances, finally decides to introduce herself to the “boy in the university hoodie”.

She is just about to get up from her chair and walk towards him, when she sees a cute, tall female walk up to the guy and ask him for his number. The boy smiles and shares it. Excusing himself for a minute, he gets up and almost never glancing towards Rebecca, like she never existed, walks towards the bookshelf, holding the book he had been reading for so many days and replaces it with a copy of “Games People Play”.