the smelly guy who talked to himself had dropped dead in the street, and people were standing around pretending to care.
celia was on her way to the library. she started to ask if anybody had called 911, but then she heard someone say, “they should be here by now,” so she continued on her way and went around the corner and entered the library.
she went past the front desk and into the reading room. nobody was sitting in “her” seat at the long table, so she took it. she took a black mead composition book out of her backpack and placed it on the table in front of her.
celia had planned to begin writing the novel she had decided to write for extra credit in her english class.
she had been going to write it about her hopeless infatuation with johnny brown, but now she thought she might write it about the dead smelly guy who talked to himself.
julia came in and sat down at the table across from celia. not directly across, but across.
julia was also writing a novel for extra credit, and had already started hers. julia ranked much higher in the universe than celia, who was a total geek and ranked near the very bottom. julia had friends, and was sometimes allowed to speak to the gods and goddesses in the highest echelons of the student body pecking order.
julia would talk to celia when they were the only two students in the library, but made it very clear that celia was not to approach her or speak to her otherwise.
“did you see the dead guy outside?” celia asked julia.
“are you serious? what dead guy? where?”
“out on mason st.”
“oh. i came in from the parking lot.” did she think i walked over? julia wondered. “anybody we know?”
“the smelly guy who hangs outside and talks to himself.”
“there’s more than one.”
“the one, you know, with a black hat with a yellow “p” on it.”
“oh, him. a very dreary specimen.”
“i thought i might write my novel about him,” celia said. as she said it it sounded really stupid.
“whatever. do what you got to do.” julia began taking things out of her backpack, dismissing celia.
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