BLUE PROSES

THE NOW-EMPTY LIBRARY

                                                                The Now-Empty Library

We don't just read in libraries, do we? Well, this is actually my all around event hall. A place where I'd obviously like to nap over a Lang Leav's or Edgar Allan Poe's poetry book and maybe be awaken by Apollo's arrival. Place where I'd put my headphone on and be isolated from everyone else, even just for a while. I skip classes, yes. I survive my entire senior high school not attending to all of my classes. It may have sound tad more lame but I know my absence wouldn't matter anyhow. I take powernaps. I nap over math equations. I nap over philosophy reviews and doing research paradigm. God knows how much time I've spent my school days in this library for the first semester of my senior high. Social outcast. That's what I am, my usual starter pack. I don't usually go and see and cross fingers with people I just met. I do weird observatory and I do examine their philosophy by simply glancing and facilitating how they react to things, even to the most mundane one. I know kindness are sugarcoated, obviously, that's the normal stranger trial phase. I don't play jenga so I'd rather go to the library and bring my Da Vinci Code book. Well at least I know Dan Brown's marvelous fiction would help me with my silence fluency. At least I don't even have to talk to them when I don't feel like it. But, as time passes by and as we go in depth beyond our subject responsibilities, the library I used to have went louder. My academic reviews went serious even if I don't really want to outsmart myself to digest all these numbers in my report card. The library I know is either an escape room, a reading portal and my movie theater, this is also a perfect place to economize your food~ I break rules secretly, it's not brutal. But all of it went vaguely different. I started coming here with my new alter egos, which started few then I gradually decipher the codes I need to unlock with them. They don't need to know me, I need to know them. Then the entire room started to burst the colors. It became a movie theater for groups. It became a sleeping quarter for our sleepy heads. It became our music area. Sometimes it was a nostalgic busy conference room. We do meetings here that does not really require the entire space. It becomes a playroom. We play mobiles legends or board games after laboratories that were supposed to be 8 hours but unfortunately, due to lack of manpower or whatever, it became 4 so the remaining 4 hours is vacant, I more likely call it wasted-tuition hours. Lol. Supposed to be learning but you don't have a professor to attend to. That's just some of my school's issue and you wouldn't want to know further more about them. From loud phases, library became a serious conference hall. We rushed our projects here. We became manic answering die-hard philosophical questions here where you need to follow every single guidelines. We do hard reviews memorizing the entire periodic table for our practical examination, we write unending essays with a brain puzzled as usual. I spent a lot of headaches and sleepless nights, even admitted to a hospital just to get a 76 grade. I had three memorable line of 7 on my card and it's funny to know how you almost killed your body and murder your mind to get things digital as it must. Welp. Instances really happen. We also do filming here in this library which I never really expect that our minor subjects are way tougher and requires more from us than our major. Well, at least I knew the different side of Science. That when you study about living things, you call it biology. With root words "bios" means life and "logos" meaning study. At least I knew if two tectonic plates collide, they form a convergent plate boundary. At least I knew the different sides and beliefs in Philosophy. Who would have thought that there are great minds beyond all these beliefs and they die hard proving their claims. I knew the difference of Heliocentric and Geocentric model of the universe. At least I tend to know the stages of life and Myer Briggs personality type. At least I knew a lot more than cooking. At least I knew the differences between a denotation and a connotation. And the fact that a story can run 12345 or 54321 or 52134. Learned how to read Baybayin. Danced for grades and all that. All these things, I still have them. The last time I slept in the library, it felt like an unspoken goodbye. It was January, under revision of our on-going research where I suggest to use jackfruit seeds to enhance the carrot cake. I can still barely recall a professor of mine who refused my free-taste offer at the faculty. I was holding the foil tray, filled with these cake slices separated generously. Like a free taste sample in malls. I brought it and lend them a taste of it which I had average feedbacks. I recall all details. That's why, when I came back to school, when I hold the doorknob of our library, it felt all nostalgic. I still smell the same room back from day one, but I saw no one seating anywhere. It felt like haunted. I almost sat in every spot in here. I still remember that seat near the aircon where I seat and won the championship in our Intramurals' scrabble competition. I still remember that seat near the door where I finished watching titanic and the exact same seat where I write my competitive essays that bags bronze medal for two consecutive years. My favorite sleeping spot at the corner before the glass sliding door. The table where we had a lot of memories with our digital footprints. There are spots here where I saw my friends and most strangers cry. It also has become a meet-up place for students who met online. There are computers at the side that we barely use because of its poor performance and it did nothing but spread its virus from various of flash drives. I saw the bell at the countertop. I can't recall how many times I heard that ding. But I knew I became one of the reasons why. We laugh hard here often. Those loud days are gone. All these seats will never feel the same again. You can no longer seat there with your closest friends. You can no longer take a nap to skip your subjects. Or accidentally fall asleep when you're tired reviewing your subjects. You can no longer make research in here, or play a movie. Or play songs to isolate yourself from the rest. This library is your history now. All the memories were engraved in every spot. This place, from being all loud and full, it has become a Now-empty-library. But rest assured, I've been here a lot, and I had a great time. This is more than a reading facility. A library can somehow feel like home, but we all changed apartment