TO THE LIBRARY

“It’s amazing, how they come and go, flying in the air,” Norma speaks to herself. “I just have to look at them, over and over. I lift my eyes up from the book, and there they are, white and innocent.”

Norma loves the wings. She is in the bus, travelling to the university library, where she spends much of her time, trying to keep up with her assignments to the writing class she’s taking. In the library, she usually takes a seat in the balcony, at a long and round table with a balustrade to the high opening. There she has a clear view to the lower floor and to the huge window outside. People sit still in the library, just reading, and normally there is no sound to be heard. Nothing moves, except the paper wings hanging from the ceiling. They seem to float in the air by themselves.

In the middle of her dreaming, the bus arrives at the library bus stop, and Norma goes out.

“What’s your agenda?” asks Papa Andrew while taking a short pause from the drilling.

“I have to go to the library,” says Norma.

“No trespassing,” says Papa Andrew. “Have you not noticed the fence and the signs?”

“But I have my assignments to do,” says Norma. “I have to finish my homework to my writing class.”

“You just have to use the detour, that’s all,” says Papa Andrew.

The road in front of the university library is closed. Papa Andrew has mounted a fence around the pit in the ground that he and his team are digging. There are several warning signs around. A huge road roller is moving in the middle of the street obstructing the way. The workers open a hole in the asphalt. The new water pipe must be installed today under the narrow street. People going to the library have to use long detours in order to get there, using the back door.

“But just for once, may I pass?” begs Norma. “I do not know any other way to the library. And it’s getting cold here.”

“Don’t you people read too much, anyway?” says Papa Andrew. “Are the books really worth of all the time you people spend with them?”

“I hate mud and noise and dirt,” says Norma. “Please let me go to the library.”

“Just walk round the building, it’s good exercise for you, sitting so much.” Papa Andrew answers. “Go left or right, it doesn’t matter. FIrst you go round the corner, then down the stairs and up again on the other side.”

He puts his helmet on, takes his tool and continues drilling.

The street work makes a big noise, but Papa Andrew is used to it. He uses earmuffs to damp the noise. He is also used to wear helmets, safety footwear and overalls.The job is hard, but he sort of likes it. Not least because he can earn more money than an average salesman. Papa Andrew has a black thick beard, which has been the cause for his nickname. He has been working in various construction buildings his entire life. Now he works in the street, drilling a hole in the asphalt in order to dig a channel for a water pipe.

Norma turns her back to the worksite trying to damp the noise by closing her ears with the palm of her hands.

It doesn’t help.

Suddently there comes a loud bang from the worksite. Huge amount of water starts to squirt from the hole the workers are digging. The spurting water knocks Papa Andrew down to the ground. In no time, the spit is full of water.

Papa Andrew is in the middle of the mess, lying on the ground, trying to grip on something to get up.

Norma is safe, because the water does not flow towards her, but streams down the slope to the other direction. She jumps over the fence on the edge of the hole.

“Give me your hand,” she screams to Papa Andrew.

“Your too far away,” he answers, the running water still blocking his movements. “Come closer.”

Norma takes a couple of more steps towards the old man, who is trying to crawl from the muddy water up to the solid ground. The flow is still rushing and throwing big lumps of sand up in the air. Normas shoes are slippery and she almost falls herself, when trying to help the other.

“You must try a little bit harder,” she urges the man. “I cannot come down so low into the hole.”

She grabs his shirt but soon has to let go of it. She gets one if his legs into her hands but the shoe gets loose.

Finally she manages to get a firm hold of the mans hand. Norma begins to pull him away from the muddy water, and slowly, little by little, she manages to help him up from the whirl of water and mud.

The old mans face has small wounds overall and his clothes are muddy and wet. His overall is shreded and one of his safety shoes is gone forever with the flowing water.

The other workers have already made an alarm, and the authorities have switched off the main water pipe. Gradually the bursting of the water from the hole slows down.

“What happened?” asks Norma. The man is now in a safe place. His head rests in her lap. “Where did the water come from?”

“From the pipe, of course,” says Papa Andrew.

“But I thought you were just installing it.”

“The old one was still on the bottom of the hole,” says Papa Andrew. “I didn’t want it to be shut down, so that the people can continue using the library. My daughter sits there every day.”

“Is your daughter a librarian?”

“No, she has been without a job for three months. Everyday she goes to the library, where she sits down to write the story of her life. Or the imagined story. Someday she will publish, I guess. Her mother has died, and she still lives with me. I have a permanent job, so we’ll manage.”

“I think I have seen your daughter. She must be the one with black hair, just like yours. We both read and write, and then we look at the ceiling, where the white wings hang, wondering how they fly and keep us away from the worries.”