One Red Thread

One Red Thread – Blind Pilot (listen in new tab)

The snow turned to rain overnight. K didn’t sleep. Since Shannon called he’d been wreckage in white water. His mind a torrent he couldn’t calm. By morning he was placid and numb with fatigue.

He was late for work at the library. He forgot Jenny’s coffee. He didn’t have time to get one himself. She looked like she could have used it; she didn’t say anything, bless her soul. But, she did remind him bluntly that today was his six month performance review.

K leans on the wall outside Candice’s closed office door, waiting for his turn. He fidgets with the sleeve of his threadbare brown corduroy sports coat. He has had it forever and loves it, but wishes he’d worn something a little more professional.

Candice opens the door. She has a look for when she’s trying to be professionally cordial. It doesn’t work. K smiles, trying to look nonchalant. Her performance reviews were known for their venom and the lack of follow through. He knows what’s coming. He’d heard it all under her breath before. But, it was a lean year. Cut backs were on the wind. The union was close to a strike vote. It was not a good time to be marked by management.

Half an hour later, Candice shows him out of her office. It followed the pattern in the management manuals exactly. She started with vague, vacuous praise of what he does well. Then the endless and spurious critique. She finished, landing a weak bit of praise about his work with reference questions. K hardly listens. Candice’s words flow around him in eddies. He thinks about calling Maura again. That thought breaks-up against the list of reasons he compiled for why Shannon was coming back. All of them are there, except for the one he really wants. Where is it?

She closes her door behind him. He hears her chair creak and roll back behind her desk. She probably is relieved it is over, too.

He stands there a moment. A patron asks about some book. It’s an old man in a grey herring bone jacket and a faded wool cap. He rocks patiently on a cane waiting for K to reply.

K barely recognizes the question. “Uh, yeah. Let’s take a look on the shelf.”

They pass the reference desk. Jenny gives him a smile. “You survived, eh? You look like you could use a drink.” Despite the cheer, she looks pale. Her eyes maybe are glassy. But, K doesn’t notice. His whole world is pale this morning.

The old man eyes Jenny. “Who’s the dame?” He smiles are her. She doesn’t smile back.
K has gathered himself, pulling from his pocket his customer service self. “I don’t think she’s interested.”

Man: “Give’er time. You kids have no patience.”

K: “Likely. Anyway, it’ll be in the D’s. Fiction’s organized alphabetically by author, you know.”

The man taps K on the shin with his cane. “Boy, I know that. I just couldn’t find it.”

K: “Ok. Ok.”

They walk down between the shelves. K scans them. He doesn’t see it either.

The old man points with his cane to one of the catalog kiosks standing in the centre of the library. “That computer contraption. It said it was here.”

K: “Well, let’s take a look.”

They emerge from the row of shelves. K sees Jenny talking to a young mother holding a baby. K can tell from her exaggerated cheer that Jenny’s rolling her eyes in her head at the woman as she explains one thing or another. She is leaning a little on her desk. It’s not something she often does. But, K doesn’t notice.

At the stained brown, pressboard computer kiosk, K and the old man search the catalog. From there he can hear Jenny’s conversation. The mother wants a book that doesn’t exist, or only exists in her mind.

K points at the computer screen. “See here, sir? It’s in, but it’s in transit.”

Old Man: “Oh. What does that mean?”

K: “It means–”

In the back of his head, he hears the conversation at the reference desk stop.

K looks. Jenny is standing, gripping the counter.

And then she’s gone.

The mother squawks in alarm and startles her baby to crying.