Here she sits among her fellow students. Like her, they all read what they are told to read, they all do the problem sets from their math and science classes, and like her, for the most part, most of the time, they don't question the reason behind all this reading, all these search for solutions. If asked, they are smart enough to come up with something convincing, even not entirely parroting what the masters of their grades would tell them. They are really smart in everything, including shutting off any voices of dissent.
But it's good for them. However useless these problem sets may be, or the hundreds of pages of dense reading, for their goals in life, they are here, as a union of nascent intellectuals. At the very least, maybe one problem set or a passage would set ablaze a desire for something life changing. That's what life is about, this thought suddenly dawns on her: to constantly change it. What is it that she's reading? It's a folkloric fable from the Greece, not the really old, Zeus kind of stories, but from the medieval times when there wasn't a Greece, not anymore, or not yet. The story probably has no relevance to her new thought, or if it did, she doesn't really care for the connection.
Her feet, in tall, leather boots bought with money her father procured with significant difficulties, rest gently on the edge of one of the fancy coffee tables with marble tops in this undergraduate library of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. She's wearing a pistachio color long-sleeve shirt over a light purple undergament with thrills coming out. Both are low cut to review the light brown color of her chest skin, though not any cleavage, for whatever reason. She had put on some light makeup, eye-shadows that look even more somber in the gentle light of the reading area of this library, and bright red lipsticks to accentuate her thin lips. She has positioned herself in the comfort of one of the many leather sofas; it's almost as if the sofa were cradling her.
When the thought dawns on her, she looks up and the overhead light reveals her small, pointed nose. Her eyes are dark, revealing no hint of the momentary shifting of gears in her mind. She has a very ordinary face, despite the expensive haircut she had gotten to make herself look more interesting. She looks around her, inspecting the brick walls interrupted only by huge windows meticulously placed by some famous architect who was invited to redesign the undergraduate library. There are also large, rectangular pillars, also of brick. She sees them, but she quickly loses her thoughts in the lines of mortar that hold the bricks together, and therefore, hold the library together. Then somehow, without focusing on anyone particular, as if her thoughts were diffusing into the room without being diluted, she sees her classmates, working, sometimes whispering to one another, sometimes smiling at something on their laptop screens. As if her thoughts were a stream of cognitive smoke they start to spiral through the spaces between the people. Her bright red lips slowly part as if her soul is taking a break and walks into the distance. Her thick reading material gently rests fully on her lap and her little fingers, whose nails painted turquoise, the same color as her jacket lying next to her, with a life of their own, find a comfortable position on the white sheets with black letters.
She is walking through the security gates. She doesn't need to show her bags because she has none, and she is invisible. She doesn't even need to push open the doors. She is already in the foyer where there's a sizable cafe with many more students sitting and doing their problem sets and reading intensely, or not, their thick packets and books. And she's in the coffee cup of on of them, maybe even a friend but it doesn't matter because she doesn't actually see the faces. She senses their moods, their souls. There's anxiety in this coffee, there's habit, there's dependency. A list of todos is stamped in every coffee particle that makes the whole cup murky. She swims out of the milky foam and finds herself outside. It's a very cold day again. A woman is standing by the stairs that lead students and their course load down to this basement library where her body is still sitting, seeing. The woman is preoccupied with her cellphone, drafting a text message in the evening chill. She had seen her earlier at the entrance to the library, at the bottom of these stairs. She was talking very loud about some difficulties with her adviser. She didn't catch most of it. Now she is in her fingers, riding them as they punched in letters being sent to the recipient, a man's name. The woman smiles a little, and continues writing how she had a very good time last night and hoped to see him again. She is not her age, but a little older, probably a graduate student. The woman hesitates the next line, and she knows why because she is now in her heart. The woman's heart is racing. She is hoping. The music of hope is so obvious to everyone but the bearer of the heart, but only if you can sit in that heart. She is doing that now. She is sitting there watching the flower of this hope blossom on the soil of so many disappointments in the past, so many lies and pain.
And she thinks about her own boyfriend, who is not studying with her now, but rather getting together with others for the Superbowl. She wonders how much longer she would be with him when every day she thinks about a different boy. And this woman, whose heart she has invaded, sends her shivers to think by her age she would still have not found the one. And so she evaporates into a different place.
Out in the field. Not some suburban field, but just a few paces away, just far enough from this woman with the sorry hope. She is now in front of the old library where most of the university's books are living in much the way bones live in catacombs. She is about to enter those books, with so much knowledge and information stored in disintegrating, yellowing paper. But she gets distracted.
Two tourists are taking pictures on this sunny but frigid day. They are Asians, probably Chinese from the nearby gathering of Chinese and their friends to celebrate the impending Chinese New Year. She watches them. One is holding a camera, aiming at the center of the old library that sits at the end of this still-green field. The woman, shorter, standing next to him is giggling, and craning her head to see the instant display at the back of the camera to see what he is about to take a picture of.
Then in that instance she finds herself in the train that is pulling into the station, some twenty minutes walk from these two tourists. She is sitting there, with all her belongings already gathered next to her. In front of her is a Chinese man, sitting and smiling. They had been talking the whole time. She found him very funny. His demeanor isn't easy to decipher, but somehow he has managed to make her laugh while every now and then they spoke of philosophy and music. He had returned from an afternoon opera, a matinee, and he shared his thoughts with her on something she had never experienced. And he asked not about her studies and her school life, but about her past, her family, to which she, surprising even herself, was very receptive to share. She even took out her camera and showed him her hometown from which she had just returned from a weekend break. And every question he asked, though there weren't many, made her think in a new way about her past, her basis in life, her origin. Compared to him, she had thought she wasn't so interesting because she wasn't ethnic, and her special advantage or vulnerability was, apparently, being a woman. But by talking to him, she discovers the depth of many mundane traits of hers. But instead of feeling pensive, feeling any desire to reflect, she was able to laugh too, thanks to him. And his frankness about himself, about his ideas, his origin, put her at ease.
She is there now, again. With him. As if it were happening for the first time even though everything is now familiar. She can look at his eyes now without turning them away with a direct gaze. And in them she finds that thought. In the past year and a half she has been in this new life, this new university, not one event really evoked a sense of maturity in her. Until now. And even before she had come, she had never experienced the reception of a thought that made her feel connected to life and take her to the next level of adulthood. All her problem sets had been either annoying or at least interesting, and there were pieces of writing that she found thought-provoking. But they all took her at most to the edge of something into which she should have fallen.
No, never did. But talking to this man did. But not immediately. She had to get a cab after saying goodbye to him. She felt pulled towards him, wanting him to push her over the edge and into a new depth of an otherwise superficial, yet-analyzed life. But she was the victim of her own habits and she instead went straight to the cab. But now, sitting in this big space of quiet people with humming minds, much like the humming air conditioning in the ceiling, she feels a change. And before she resumes her reading in this cradling sofa, she smiles a little, puts the big packet down on the marble tabletop, gets up, leaving a sighing sound from the deflated cushion, and takes a short walk around the interior of the library.
