Sad Library Things

Flash Contest Finalist

“Distorted Room” by Lindy Giusta

A glucose test strip for a bookmark. The auto mechanic who peruses the DVDs on his lunch break, picking at a duct tape patch on the seat of his pants. Stranded printer pages. Final recipe steps, Chapter 7 forms, a bunion treatment payment schedule. The stacks calling to me whenever I can’t take the circ desk gossip. The woman who still checks out Colic Solved, Colic Cured years after her baby died of SIDS. A bully in the children’s room pressing a kid's face into the crotch of a Bitty Baby doll. My boss’s warning that I’m helping you out too much with VA and job sites. That you’re just one patron and there are others. Outdated Pathology and Religion we can’t give away, to slash and gut. Women Who Marry Houses. Those Curious New Cults. Mr. Bucco throwing his pocket change at me after I remind him to pay for his copier pages. You librarians gone the way of the penny yet? The heads that turn. Yours. The stacks shivering like a forest as I walk through them. You confessing you’re long widowed, too. Mrs. Liu asleep on the reading room sofa when I open, hiding from her son-in-law. Remains in your usual computer carrel. A lemon Starburst wrapper. A drinking straw sleeve, accordioned and jumpy. A paper clip easel. The pale lips in black-and-white author photos from the 60s and 70s. A photocopy left for me, from a numismatics book, with an unsigned note: You are worth more than the 1856 Flying Eagle One Cent, one of the rarest of pennies. A rusted can of Lysol in the broom closet. Your usual carrel but no you. For days. Weeks. Me looking at the doors whenever someone enters. Months. The mechanic finally checking out a DVD, reddening when I say he chose a good one. Dumbo. A pregnancy test on the public toilet, blue-lined. A butterfly wing for a bookmark. A workmate asking if I miss that camo cap dude with the limp. Me not answering. Lying down in the stacks after closing sometimes, before going home. My joints like soft twigs crackling. My pillow a thinning cardigan belonging to a librarian who retired back when I was a teen, her name faded as an old spine label. Moira or Mona or something. The ancient snake plant in Large Print you used to talk to that refuses to die.

About the author

Eileen Frankel Tomarchio writes from a small New Jersey town, where she's worked at a library for 18 years. Her recent writing has been published in The Baltimore Review, Hunger Mountain, Gooseberry Pie, Reckon Review, FlashFlood/ NFFD, -ette review, and Porter House Review. She's at Bluesky/ X @eileentomarchio and on Instagram @gondaline26. 

about the artist

Lindy Giusta is a queer prolific and passionate visual artist and writer from California. They have had their artwork published in various litmags like Bleating Things, Hemlock Journal, Wildroof Journal, and more, and their poetry featured in Unleash Lit and Dark Poets Club. They have shown their art across California and New York. When not writing or creating art they love exploring cities and nature, playing their mandolin and drinking copious amounts of coffee. IG: @lindydoesart