I needed to take out a few books and a movie from the library, and so I convinced Chris to come with me this evening. As we approached, I stopped to re-check the closing time, because the whole building was dark. It turned out that the power had been out for an hour already, but the library was still up and running (as long as you didn't need to look anything up on the computer).
I really didn't want to have to come back, and between the emergency lights and the big windows, you could make your way around well enough, and so I decided to go and find my books.
The first books I had to get were just on the second floor, where there are big windows and where plenty of students were still studying, huddled under the emergency lights. The only thing that seemed strange was the complete silence.
But then I needed a book from the third floor mezzanine level. The third floor's mezzanine is creepy on a good day: with its thin railings and its sudden staircases cut through the floor, I always feel like I'm going to fall off. (And it's the level that has all the history books.) Without the power, with very few windows and with no one on the third floor or its mezzanine? Super creepy. Especially when I came back down to the regular level and discovered that Chris had disappeared. I couldn't find him in the entire half of the building where I'd last seen him, even when I called out his name.
Seriously: I'm twitchy enough at night, and I should never watch any remotely scary movies because they all run through my head at once when I'm alone in the dark. And when I'm alone in a dark, empty and remote part of the library?
Of course, as soon as I lost my nerve and decided to go and wait out in the brightly-lit stairway, a librarian with a flashlight came up to the third floor. And I was just joking with her that I'd lost my husband to the creepy darkness when Chris appeared, having been looking for me up on the mezzanine level. (He'd also been toying around with the idea of jumping out and scaring me up there, but decided that the library wouldn't take too kindly to someone screaming as if murdered.)
I really didn't want to have to come back, and between the emergency lights and the big windows, you could make your way around well enough, and so I decided to go and find my books.
The first books I had to get were just on the second floor, where there are big windows and where plenty of students were still studying, huddled under the emergency lights. The only thing that seemed strange was the complete silence.
But then I needed a book from the third floor mezzanine level. The third floor's mezzanine is creepy on a good day: with its thin railings and its sudden staircases cut through the floor, I always feel like I'm going to fall off. (And it's the level that has all the history books.) Without the power, with very few windows and with no one on the third floor or its mezzanine? Super creepy. Especially when I came back down to the regular level and discovered that Chris had disappeared. I couldn't find him in the entire half of the building where I'd last seen him, even when I called out his name.
Seriously: I'm twitchy enough at night, and I should never watch any remotely scary movies because they all run through my head at once when I'm alone in the dark. And when I'm alone in a dark, empty and remote part of the library?
Of course, as soon as I lost my nerve and decided to go and wait out in the brightly-lit stairway, a librarian with a flashlight came up to the third floor. And I was just joking with her that I'd lost my husband to the creepy darkness when Chris appeared, having been looking for me up on the mezzanine level. (He'd also been toying around with the idea of jumping out and scaring me up there, but decided that the library wouldn't take too kindly to someone screaming as if murdered.)
2 comments:
Too bad Audrey Hepburn isn't still alive, she could have played you in the movie version.
Holy crow. I'm just imagining the fall-out if Chris HAD jumped out at you. Too funny.
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