An Empty Friday

The time is 3:01 in the library lounge area. the lounge is almost dead silent, no one talks. The only noise of any sort comes from the opened doubled doors leading into the library. Within I can hear muffled chatter and the clanking of furniture. My surroundings are far quieter than they were last week, this due in part to the smaller number of people that inhabit the lounge this Friday. A young thin woman wearing a hat (let’s call her hats) sits across from me in one of the overtly plushed seat chairs. She sits slanted, a thin right leg crossed over her left, her head bent over a tablet looking device laying promptly in her lap. She scrolls and taps with absolute dedication and interest. I wonder if she is reading a book, or playing a game of some sort. A woman, whom I didn’t happen to see when I first entered, leaves the seat beside me. Lugging along a large coffee cup and bag. A few minutes have passed now, and Hats seems to have gotten tired of her slanted posture, she first changes her legs to left over right, then sits up straight and holding the electronic in front of her face.  Then,  just as quickly she falls back deeply into her seat and reads with spine altering leisure. In the far left corner of the library study are two darker women, one wearing a head covering (cover), and the other a baseball cap (cap). The two sit at tables aside one another, silent, immersed in their respective laptops. Each seems to be working on papers/ diagrams. A young woman wearing sports attire, now crossed to the inside of the library, she holds change readily in her hand, I assume to purchase/pay to print something inside. Followed by the girl exits a man in a green checkered shirt. Meanwhile hats seems to be on her way out. Gathering up a small black purse soundlessly, she slips from the scene, her eyes still glued to the screen of her tablet. Cover and cap are now the only two individuals in the lounge area. A few minutes of off silence pass over the scene, and then two older women enter and pass into the library. Both are talking loudly, an older woman with gray hair is very physical as she talks. Moving her hands as if explaining a large elaborate story. The athletic young woman I mentioned before now passes through the lounge to exit, instead of money she is now holding a small piece of paper in her hand. It is unclear what is it she purchased. Back at Cap and covers tables, cover seems to be leaning over her bag, fishing inside, until she pulls out a packet. With this she holds in one hand, and with the other she types slowly on her laptop. Perhaps she is entering a code or date? She soon stops typing and picks up the packet with both hands. She cocks her head and leans into cap, and says something I cannot differentiate as being in a foreign language, or being in English with a very heavy accent. She now pulls up something on her laptop and shows it to cap. As this happens, two more individuals pass through the library lounge. Cover flips through her packet, and probes cap with questions, of which she answers in the same dialect as cover. A few moment s have passed, and Two more individuals have entered through the lounge, silently, in almost single file. Cap and Cover now talk off and on, each looking at their respective computer screens. Cover at last putts down her packet, and uses both hands to navigate through cyber space. A few minutes have passed and without thinking I decide to stretch my foot, my foot makes a dreadful loud cracking noise that makes cover turn reactively. Two extremely young (possibly teenage or younger) girls enter the library, the eldest looking of the two holding a tablet, with which the two seem to be looking over together. They pass into the library then emerge moments later and take a seat in the center of the room. (let’s call them old sis and young sis) Old sis takes out a headphone set from her front pocket and hands a bud to young sis. Old sis seems to be the one in charge of their actions. As she has been the one talking up till now, and is the one directing young sis to the pictures on the tablet before them.  The time is 3:35, the two girls continue to talk, scrolling and tapping the tablet. Smiling at the material on it, to one image shown older sis shouts “who are you!” loudly, as in impersonating something in an effort to make young sis laugh. And so it does. Cover and cap converse louder than usual, cover leaning over to her friend, pressing her with what sound like more questions about whatever it is she is doing on her computer. Covers talk is now interrupted sharply by cap, whose tone now sounds annoyed. Cover attempts to talk beside this with no avail, and eventually stops and listens to cap. She does not talk again, and instead scrolls quietly through her laptop. The two talk after a few minutes to cool down, their tones are softer and of more of a joking nature.