The crummy weather draws more people into the building than usual. It's been cloudy all day but in the most pleasant way. I see a majority of the some thirty people in the building holding warm coffees. The first wave of sweater weather has started today.
The thirty people I see are are college students, mostly girls. Some of them are lounging about in the chairs. Every single lounger has their eyes fixed on their phone. The others are studying diligently (and by diligently, I simply mean they are staring at their phones less than the loungers) with books sprawled out on the table. The rain has made the air humid and the building feels stuffy. There's a large, unavoidable puddle by the front door and it's quite amusing to watch people try and avoid it. The first girl I saw try to enter the building made an attempt to hurdle the puddle. She landed promptly in the middle. In defeat, she trudges the rest of the way through the puddle and into the building. Several others make the same attempt and only one makes it successfully (but to be fair, the successful jumper had legs longer than my body).
It's 7:00, Monday night. It should be Anime Night but instead it's Harry Potter Night. I'm not even mad. Sadly, no one is dressed up. Well that's a lie, there's one person in a Hogwarts scarf. All of them are gathered in chairs sitting quietly. It looks like more of a reading circle than a club because they each have their own book and are just sitting silently reading. I count seven of them, three boys and four girls. Two of the girls are twins and they have matching red hair with wide set eyes and pale skin. One of the other girls, the one in the scarf, has long brown hair and thick thick glasses. She's in full sweater weather gear. Boots, leggings, and what other than a sweater. The other girl is Asian, and she is focused on her book with immense concentration. The three boys are rowdy together, they laugh and cackle with each other in between pages. One is obnoxiously tall and maybe Italian? The other two are generic white, college boys in basketball shorts and T-shirts.
Then comes Candy. Candy is somewhere in her 40's, if I was being generous, her 30's. She is a large woman with BRIGHT pink hair and a quirky personality. She has pink, knee-high socks. She is also transgender. Let me start with the thing I notice most, which is surprisingly, not her hair. It is the trail of judgmental stares that follow behind her. I see her walk past various groups and the second she passes them they point and snicker and stare. They're like middle-schoolers.
She saunters through the building, head down.
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