SUMMER’S ENDED

THE LIBRARY QUIETEST DAY is usually Wednesdays and if you’re able to sneak past the philosophy bookshelves and straight to poetry – there you’ll find a hidden gem. It’s a closed corner with no other access or exit, a place of sacred silence where only seldom will you find young students that go there to smooch undisturbed.

I go there to shoot heroin.

I really like to shoot heroin and I bet anyone would like it if they weren’t that scared of doing it. It’s the drug with the worst rep, even if we call it the drug of the angels because that’s how you feel when you do it; like an angel lifted on its wings by the breath of God. And because I’m not a junkie, but I cannot shoot in my own place, and also because today I got the day off from work because they’re doing pest control, I decided that since it was a rainy end of summer day, the best place for me to go was the library.

Being a Wednesday, you know there aren’t going to be many people around, so I figured Why not? and headed for the library with my kit and all, flashed a smile to the old librarian lady and headed straight for my little private cozy corner of paradise where the trumpets of heavens were awaiting me. I got comfortable on the ledge of a boarded up window and, in the dim silent light of this place, got ready for my daily sugar.

Libraries are sacred places. Churches made of words. I tried shooting up in churches, but they’re not as cozy with their wooden benches and all. But my ecstatic moments of personal prayer can happen there as well.

I’ll skip the technical details about alcohol swabs, spikes, spoons and such, and before someone points out What about the smell, well, clearly there’s some dope misconception because it doesn’t smell at all – apart from a vague hint of vinegar which would be covered by the smell of old musty books.

I grabbed a book to ease into my rush, opened it to the middle and just got ready to hug the sky once again. I smacked the syringe cheerfully and kissed the needle before inserting it in. I saw my blood dancing in the glass like red liquid smoke. I pressed the plunger slowly but steadily, until it was empty, then I removed it carefully, and before leaving for paradise I made sure that my kit was back in my bag. I opened the book again and let the dust and light and silence cradle me, as the words from the poems of the book sank into me while I was sinking into pleasure.

And I heard from outside the pitter-patter of gentle rain, and I was blind to the universe crying, but through the boarded window I could still feel the rain washing upon me. There I was one and one and one and many and one and the Holy Ghost was dancing in my belly.

I told you, heroin is the shit.

There I was, the untold son of pleasure, unbathed newborn in the light of despair and youth, when I heard a sound coming from behind the shelf.

My dose was small – because I am a conscientious person – so I was able to stand up and be still and listen for more sounds. This time I was sure; someone was sharing this space with me. My cozy little secret. I leaned on the edge of the shelf, but I couldn’t see around it, so I removed a book or two from the shelf; and then I saw them – they must have been fifteen, sixteen tops, and I could feel their heartbeat and their breathing and there I was – I was their lips and their uncertain hands on their virgin bodies. They were young, no, they were youth; and I could blame it on the tar and my heightened perception and blood flow, but I could feel my pants getting smaller and smaller. And there I was, and they didn’t see me, and I saw them, and their white bodies. They were perfect in the hideout destiny made us share.

At first I just stroked my pants, lost in the rhythm of their love-making, spectator on an invisible window. But desire is a demon you can’t control and before I knew it, I grabbed myself. I slowly started to touch myself, blind slave of primal instinct, and my hand moved quicker and slower, following that dance of youth that was playing in front of me. And their moans were my moans and their hands were my hands, and if someone would have seen us they might have thought we were one and one and one and many.

And I might have been carried away by the moment because I let out a moan, and she was standing with her hands on the shelf and her face must have been two books away from me, and I am sure she heard me because in the small spaces between the books I could see her eyes locking into mine just a split second before she bit her lip and moaned louder and there I came, keeping my breath in and my moans in and my love in, in the middle of the book that started my rush, forever holder of my secret.

Her eyes were closed and maybe she didn’t see me, and she let out a moan so loud – a high pitched Ah! born from the deep of her belly, from the point where her skin touched her lover’s one – that the old lady came hurrying and shrieked at the sight of two teenagers with their pants down in her world, and she kept screaming, breaking the sacred place.

The dance was over, the magic was gone, the birds had vanished one by one, and I could only feel spots of colours dancing behind my eyelids and my two partners’ shame, with their hands still interlocked, hands that pushed the books down and were now an inch from my face.

So while the old lady screamed about police and integrity and dignity I put my lips on their hands, and softly kissed my love goodbye, knowing unremembered I will be for them that night. And they went away and the old lady came to my side, but all she saw was someone crying over a poetry book, and she didn’t ruin my moment. I spent the rest of my high crying and smiling, looking at myself over that page over and over, memorising the poem I defiled.

When the library was about to close I found the strength to get up, prepare myself to face the world, and on the way out the door the old librarian recognised me. She blubbered something like Sorry for what happened, and other things like Kids today, and all I heard were stray words like Terrible, Unbelievable, and Discipline.

I just smiled and nodded and went out, unsheltered from the rain, without being able to shake the words from my head, that summer sang in me a little while, and sings no more.