Broken memory

On the back of my hand, I have, over the course of the day, written two things: 'library' and 'cs'.

I know why I wrote 'library': I need to go home via the main campus to collect a book to look at for tomorrow.

I don't know why I wrote 'cs'. I'm not even entirely sure that 'c' isn't an 'l'. Unlike 'library', I've gone over it several times, in a pen that I know is hard to wash off. I obviously thought it was important.

Libraries

They're strange places. I've just used my university's library for the first time, without benefit of introductory library tour, or anything like that. I knew the shelf mark I was looking for, so I was able to find the books I wanted, but not without marvelling at the way libraries behave differently to all other sorts of rooms. There are caves and secret passages, mysterious basements and lofty galleries. People behave differently, and not just more quietly.

The lobby of the library, which I'd visited before, to see a friend who works there, had lulled me into a false sense of security. I'd forgotten that libraries exist in strange parallel dimensions, and that conventional directions and dimensions work differently.