CALGARY – Reading is known as a means of escape from the harshness of reality, but for one local woman who wishes to remain anonymous, a ticking clock turned her dream of a pleasant diversion into a looming nightmare.
“I never meant for things to go this far,” she said, adjusting the trenchcoat, fedora and sunglasses she wore to return the book. “I kept telling myself I still had time. We all lie to ourselves, don’t we? As the due day crept closer and closer, I started renewing it, desperately, over and over. Soon I was out of renewals and out of time.”
She briefly considered keeping the book even after it was due. But she shared a library card with her husband, and she was adamant he not pay [the nickel a day overdue fee] for her sin.
“You get to a point where you’ve dug yourself a hole so deep you realize it’s not just a hole, it’s a grave,” she said, taking a long drag on her cigarette. “When you find yourself in a grave, sometimes all you can do is lie down in it.”
“I read something like that in a book once. Not this book, of course. I never got around to reading it.”
At press time, the anonymous woman had reached her breaking point and was trying to surrender herself to a very confused librarian.
