Visitors by Carol

Three days ago Brenda comes in and asks for the day after Thanksgiving off. I tell her no, sorry, we put in those requests two months ago.

     But her kids are sick. They need their momma.

     I say, her kids are both in their thirties. One of them has a family. The other might just be too damn stoned to see out the window. Plus, the children's librarian and the tech serv librarian are off. It's just me, Brenda, and the reference librarian all day.

     "Why don't we just close?" she said.

     I told her no.

     She crooked her hand. Spitting on my office floor, Brenda spoke out the old Creole tongue. A wormy string of swamp words came out of her mouth and stained my ears. Then she took out a marker, drew a symbol on my office door, and closed it behind her with a bang.

     The lights went out. Total dark filled the windows and cracks around the door. Silence filled everything but my chest thumping.

     A little girl stood in front of me. Small, dainty in a white dress. She looked like my sister so many years ago. Then she pulled out a rubber mallet and slammed it into the desk. When the desk did not break, she climbed over it and came at me. I fought her off, pushing us back from the desk and toppling the chair.

    Blows rained down. Thick heavy smacks. The child did not have the raw power or the instrument for any one blow to hurt, but goddamn they began to add up.

     I threw her off me. Standing, I oriented myself toward the door. Within three steps a man stood in front of me holding a ruler. He had on a brown coat and red shirt. His hair was shorter than mine, but other than that he could have been my doppelganger. As if I had been left in the microwave a little too long.

    He swung the ruler at my head. The smack came hard. I felt the light wood break against my jawbone. Painful, but in no way debilitating. I wrenched the broken end out of his hand and turned it on him. He died well, my alternate.

     The little girl screamed. She hit my shin with the mallet. I kicked out, getting her in the face. She stumbled, and I pounced. I grabbed her arm and leg, lifted, and threw her where I judged the window to be. In the darkness she vanished to the sound of glass breaking and screams.

     "You should not have done that. The Past is perfect," said a voice of stone.

     I could feel the edge of my desk. Lowering my hand, I opened the second drawer. The revolver filled my hand as I turned and faced the stranger.

     "Yep," I said and shot the pale figure in the forehead.

     The lights came back. All the light, from the windows and the fixtures. I closed my eyes to think. The smell of cordite filled my nostrils as I dumped the revolver on the desk with a heavy thud.

     After a few breaths, I picked up the phone. Dialed the circulation desk.

     "Yes?" Brenda said.

     "About Thanksgiving."

    "Yes," Brenda said.

    "No," I said, and hung up the phone.