Lost Keys and River Stones in the Library

Lost Keys and River Stones in the Library

I was back at the public library near my childhood home, trying to find my car keys before it closed. Every aisle I walked down felt slightly too long, lined with tall wooden shelves of dusty reference books. I ran into an older woman working the front counter who somehow felt like both my high school chemistry teacher and my grandmother. She didn't look at me, just kept sorting through a deck of strange, unprinted cards on the desk while murmuring under her breath about star alignments and overdue fines. I kept checking my coat pockets, but instead of keys, I only pulled out smooth, dark river stones that felt heavier than they should have. The lights began dimming in a sequence from the back of the room toward me, not flickering like a power outage, but like a shadow was quietly rolling forward. I felt this intense, quiet dread that if I didn't reach the glass revolving doors before the shadow did, I wouldn't exist anymore, but my legs felt leaden and slow.