Paper crinkles as one student, engulfed in a black parka with a white, faux-fur hood, writes diligently in her yellow notepad. Her head shifts between the pad in front of her and her phone. She regularly clicks the screen to keep it from going dark.
Another student sits at a table meant for two and spreads her textbooks across it. Notebooks and neon Post-its stick out from between the pages. Multicolored pens accompany her tools, and she rests her head atop the mess for some time.
AirPods and earphones stuff into their ears to drown out the sound of flipping pages and ambulances wailing by. The smell of halal food, seasoned chicken and barbeque sauce, scents the air every so often, stealing people’s attention for a few moments at a time. Someone sneezes. Someone coughs.
Hands palm laptops shut and zip up backpacks. Students enter and exit the library without fanfare or notice. Though a person’s entrance to the Cooperman Library at Hunter College is sounded by a musical note and gets periodically interrupted by an alarm, students don’t often look up to acknowledge the disturbance. The incoming chatter dies down when newcomers walk further into the room.
The library exchanges people often and without remorse. Vacant tables are rare, but on a Friday afternoon when the temperature is only decreasing and the weekend is finally here, the room seems almost desolate.
Students take advantage of all the free real estate. They spread out on a couch, feet on the upholstery, their varying lengths leaving room for only one person to sit upright, his backpack nestled comfortably between his legs. He looks over at the sleeping bodies often, assuring himself that he’s not bothering their slumber.
The third-floor library is really a study hall. There are no books harbored here. Whatever is brought in is brought out. On the higher floors, shelves of books remain untouched and gather dust, but here, the only thing that stays stagnant is the broken clock with unmoving hands and the slight feeling of desperation to get an assignment finished.
Hurried hands fly over keyboards and wrists get shaken out as the clouds begin to creep in. The sun sets earlier now. The natural light that filtered in through the windows in the early hours of the afternoon begins to disappear. Now, fluorescent lights do all the hard work.
A noise-cancelling blanket settles over the third-floor library, advising everyone to keep their voices low and soft. Here, everything is muffled and everything is amplified. Make no sound and all is well, but open a plastic bag of chips and heads whip up to locate the hiccup in silence. There is no in-between.
