"The true man wants two things: danger, and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything." ~ Friedrich Neitzsche.

"Men are by nature merely indifferent to each other; but women are by nature enemies." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer.

"Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors." ~Voltaire.

"I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so because I think him so." ~ William Shakespeare.

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Side note for those who noted that all those I quoted were in possession of a penis:

Exactly.

Take from my folly what you will: That men are on the whole more admirable writers than women, or that the woman currently writing this sentence casts her admiration unjustly through the prejudiced lens of attraction.

And yes, this whole essay is, in all probability, merely a simplistically feminist-repellent defense of my morally unfounded, disgracefully antiquated and piteously anencephalous prejudice in favor of the particular kind of mental prowess which can be found virtually exclusively plaguing the rutting ranks of the unfairer sex.

But you won't be sure unless you read it. I'm not even sure myself yet, which is perhaps why I'm compelled to write it...

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Confession the first: I love deliberation. Good old-fashioned heartily masculine Greco-Roman deliberation. As a result, I have been guilty in the past, (only with the goodliest and most self-improving intentions you understand) of embarking upon long-winded theoretical debates with people.

Confession the second: I am useless at deliberation. The problem is that, me being the weirdly masculine-minded yet dutifully feminine-hearted heterosexual and roughly-homo-sapiens-shaped creature that I am, all the really good worthwhile conversations invariably devolve into either flirtations (in the case of conversations with men) or catfights (in the case of conversations with women)...{In fact, with one strong willed woman of my acquaintance whom I will always hold in high esteem, there was an air of both; flirtation and cat-scrappery [that which she would call trollery] between us, I hope she would agree... But I digress.}

As near as I can tell, this inability of mine to comport myself with any dignity whatsoever whilst interacting with my fellow humanoids is because, through the unparalleled excitement of conversing with a person, I get to know a glimmer of who that person is. And that glimmer is the key to the activation sequence of my inner ruling body: untrammeled empathy, born of the interminable female in me; that part what runs chiefly (if not exclusively) on emotion instead of on reason.

You might think that being online might help stave off such problematically intimate knowledge of a person (and the inevitable bias which always hitches itself unwelcome to the wholesome accumulation of knowledge on any subject) however, in my case at least, the opposite of anonymity holds sway here: Being online frees a person up to say whatever it is they want to say. To get off their chest all the mind-bogglingly meaningful or chaotically nonsensical honesty which would otherwise weigh heavily upon their corporeal existence.

Here, people here are free to tell you who they actually are, without fear of physical persecution (or indeed of social persecution in their immediate vicinity). As an effect of this, when in dialogue with a person online you wind up knowing even more about them personally than if you'd met them "in person." Far more, in some cases. Excruciatingly personal things are shared about the less-than-illustrious personages inhabiting the sticky interwebs. I am no exception. Confession the third: I have shared thoughts here on Prose which contained opinions I wouldn't have dared to utter to my most physically intimate persons.

But now, whenever I catch that ineffable spark; when I linger in the comment section of a post for instance, fingers poised in the kind of manic elation which accompanies the anticipatory feeling of having something worthwhile to say, I suddenly and overwhelmingly find myself utterly unworthy to say it. My mind rebels the formulation of words into sentences when directly put to a specific person. It is not because I have no thoughts about their thoughts, but because my fingers suddenly realize my brain to be abominably inadequate to the appointed task of conversing with a fellow human being. Confession the fourth: I am simply far to empathetic and/or adversarial to effectively pull off a halfway decent philosophical conversation without falling into (or at the very least slipping up on) either love or contempt.

If any woman has somehow read thus far without scoffing me off the face of the planet in disgust, thank you. You're an amazing kindred soul and I love you dearly, even as much as you may pity me my faulty suppositions. I'd like it to be understood at this juncture that it is not because we females are stupid, nor even that we are inferior in the realms of critical thought, on the whole. The fact that we are incapable of holding down a sensible conversation with a man in the pursuit of that man's philosophy is a matter of biological influence. Men are likewise incapable of holding down a calm and sensible conversation with us, 'leastways for any extended period of time without falling victim to the villainous distraction of a hard-on...

See now I've gone and gotten myself all unduly hot and bothered again. The mere mention of a male sexual organ is enough to reduce me to a mindless puddle of lusty agreeableness... where was I? Ah yes; it is instinct which is the enemy of peaceful and respectable interaction between the sexes, not either of the sexes themselves, my dearest fellows. Schopenhauer touched on the reason for a male's advantage in the area of philosophical deliberation in the above quote I quoted at the start, if you'd care to glance back for reference, I'll start a new paragraph after the dots so that it's easier for you to find your place on the scroll-down:

.......................................................

I would further suppose that a man can have friends; true friends with whom he can deliberate upon any thing of apparent importance which crosses his brain without having to worry about the emotional upheaval involved in his implications, while a woman, conversely, can only have a series of lovers and/or enemies. (Often both descriptions are accurate of the same person at the same time!) To a woman, even her female "friends" fall into one of two categories: unbridled and passionate accord or polite detestation. There is no middling indifference to be had.

Confession the fifth: No self-detestation nor anticipation of guilt nor sense of decorum is adequate prevention to my baser instinct in such sordid affairs of the heart and mind.

If you're a woman who is (somewhat miraculously still) reading this, and are thereby experiencing any degree of outrage or repugnance at my ingrained patriarchy... exactly.

(though I will have to object to your suspicion that I've been subliminally brainwashed by any kind of patriarchy; the contrary is more likely to be true: my formative instructors have all done their utmost to brainwash me in a more feminist direction. It is my own nature which assaults that doctrine, not any male's intentional influence upon me.)

Morality is necessarily emotional in essence, but the reverse is not true. Emotion is just where our strength of understanding lies as females... Or I should say where our sequence of understanding lies... for example; where we have an emotional reaction and then try to puzzle it out, a man might try to puzzle it out and then have an emotional reaction. Do you see?! ... Damn sexy when they're thinking AND feeling, aren't they? Men that is. Distractingly sexy...

In simplest terms; my natural impulse would have me silently enthralled by the unvoiced (yet nevertheless persuasive) notion that men are for making babies with and that women are for pissing off. That barbarity of guttural sentiment always seems to shine through any civilized enlightenment my higher reasoning struggles to convey, no matter how loquaciously I try to shield it from appearance.

So, is there a solution to this mess? I don't know what it is but I know a few things that it isn't: It is not, as the feminists would ironically have it, to dispense with concrete definitions of sex altogether. Nor is it to confine each questing, questioning, well-meaning soul who happens to be born in a female's body to the society of only those stupid men and gentle women who do not excite her own lecherous leanings. There are, after all, a great percentage of lilly-livered men who are about as strong-willed and quick-witted as peculiarly docile sheep. She would be safe among that sort, surely. But would she be happy? fulfilled? satiated? Nay. As Shakespeare better put it: "Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered by a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marle?"

Final confession: As if to prove my previous point, I have no concrete practical idea about how to conclude this essay. All I have is a gut feeling that the only possible solution lies within deliberation. And that that is why I love to debate with you as I do. Or at least as I did, before the disparaging gravity of my humiliatingly small degree of knowledge got the better of my audacity.

dead before

they could ever be

what might have been

we'll never see

so why go round

and round again

to show how wrong

(or right)

our law has been

why not instead

spend precious breath

on those

we find

this side of death

who may not see

age one or three

or ever know

great joy or glee

or even

feel a mother's

kiss

or have one time

full tummy bliss

why not use

our fleeting days

to think about

the many ways

we can make

our own space

a somewhat better

living place

for those who are

still here

here now

with heavy hearts

and

furrowed brows.

they did matter

and matter still

perhaps

to the ones

for whom time

does not elapse

who cannot

forget

what was

and

never will be

again

for while

we deal in

speculation

it's

their past

their pain and

their chagrin.

My wife, who is my closest confidant and best friend, is beautiful, smart, funny, kind, patient, and compassionate. You, however, do not want her because God, in His infinite wisdom, created her just for me, and me just for her. Neither of us would work with anyone else.

My brother, who has his quirks just like me, is there for me every time I need him, and I for him as well. We share the bond of philadelphia well. We know and understand each other in a way no one else can comprehend. But you would not want him because God, in His infinite wisdom, knew that we were meant to be brothers and none other would fit.

My children, now grown and better men than me, still share a wonderful relationship with me, their mother, and each other. While the each have their own strengths and weaknesses, their hearts are good, their minds clear, and their members willing and able to do what is right. But you would not want them because God, in His infinite wisdom, gave them to me and their mother alone to love, teach, encourage, and prepare. In any other home they would be different people; not to say bad people or worse people, but different people. They are now who they were, have always, been meant to be.

Purpose

is what makes my life worth living.

My purpose is unique to me

It is not yours

It cannot be yours

You have your own unique purpose.

Use it

to make your life worth living.

The colors change

Blue pink and orange

then to navy.

Pretty and Bright.

Then to Darkness.

But it will burn you

It will sting your eyes

then when it is over.

It will leave you in eerie darkness.

With the deafening sound of crickets.

Once more I am drawn into a challenge and this one is somewhat dear to my heart as I have written many pieces on the Native American Indian.

I don't know about the "constitutional definition" but from my perspective the definition would be more like belonging to or associated with a particular place (such as a country) because of being born in that place.

History tells us the Native American Indian was here in the United States before the colonials first arrived. Hence, the Native American is from here. The colonials were from another place (indigenous) but no less a native of both their culture and heritage they brought with them.

Native born. If I were born in India, I would be a native of the country as I would have been born there. Same applies to Poland, China, Australia and so forth. We then are born into specific beliefs taught to us at an early age. These same beliefs are passed on from generation to generation. As to the electing someone as President of the United States, the

Constitution is clear on this: to run, one must be born and reside in the United States at least fourteen years, and be at the very least, thirty-five years of age.

Now, in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, we have native born Americans born from another class of people. About a quarter of voting members (23%) of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are racial or ethnic minorities, making Congress the most racially and ethnically diverse in history. According to my research, 124 lawmakers today identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander or Native American.

For decades, the president has been predominantly white, but that all change when Obama was elected. This should tell you that to be president, neither race nor color takes precedence. Just the basic requirements.

In closing, to answer the one question: the constitutional rights of Alaska Egg-people are every bit as important as midget ice-cream bars are to Lilliputians. The rights of the individual in a sense are the rights of the collective. If no harm befalls those who are not into Alaskan eggs or midget ice cream bars, then all is right with the world.

"You're not alone."

"I know, I know, Halley. The grand cosmos is full of unimaginable wonders. "

"Your sarcasm is really coming along, but I meant, I'm here."

"You're not here, here."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You have your own path. You're here for a while, and then you're gone again, and I'm alone again."

"I always come back."

"Yes, but for how long?"

"Well...we're part of the same galaxy, so I imagine I'll be around for a while. Besides, it's not just me that's here. What are there, like 83 of you? Where is this coming from?"

"I just feel like it's all pointless. Just spinning around this god-forsaken gas ball. There isn't even life here. And like you said, there are 83 of us. Why do I even need to be here?"

"I mean, most planets don't have life. Doesn't make being a moon any less meaningful."

"I don't know...I have water. Just seems I ought to be doing more...more than just spinning."

"We're all spinning on different routes."

"I suppose so."

"You're doing great."

"Thanks."

i'd hate to generalize. but it's an unavoidable truth that not all objects were created equal. size, density, composition, location, velocity and direction all go into the marvously complex question that is the psychology of celestial objects.

take a small rock. just a few miles wide. its mass will determin how much energy will be required to move it. it has its own ways of looking at things and it may take quite a lot to get it to move.

on the other hand it may also take a lot to convince the same rock to change direction. depending on just how much they are set in their ways.

that is the thing about celesial bodies. no one asked them if they they wanted any of this. they just came about , through a history that is mostly violent, and they deal with things the best way they can. some delve too much into their pain. some give to others and radiant warmth. but in space , no one hears you scream...mostly. unless you give them a chance to open up. so much can change from this.

here are just a few examples i've come across.

they all need help. existing in this universe is not easy for anyone. it doesnt matter what are you. you can take so much before you snap, go off the rails. it doesnt really matter to the individual if he's coming close to reletivistic speeds, or whether they are just newtonically 'fast' . no one has a smooth, blemish-free surface. well...except for black holes, but with the bottomless singularity they've got, i don't envy them at all.

craters and coronal ejection, fissures and frozen dunes. its all pretty depressing. and it doesnt even matter what physical state of matter you're made of, or how many layers you have, or how active is your magnetic field.

now , i specialize in medium to large asteroids. i do planetoids and comets too. i try to keep them from getting carried off into some insane adventure. i try to help them maintain a functional and yet dynamic AND safe orbit. and let me tell you that they are a massive ring of unhappiness.

sometimes they had enough. they just let themselves be carried away in events. they know it is not going to turn out well. but despite the help we offer them they just end up as a burning streak on some atmosphere.

meteorites have this hate in them. they see things with loathing. sometines quite a lot of racism. they just smash into things. leaving massive craters. cause they know deep down that they could have been better. but it was always easier to burn rather than build. i pity meteorites.

comets, well, are more overcompensating in their low-density than anything else. they are compositionally just a bunch of water and ammonia ice, maybe a bit of heavier stuff. they hate that. silica and metal-rich objects just drive them mad. and everything you say to them they take as a patronizing. they flash their volatiles for short periods of time. when coming close to the sun. the sun, by the way is the only one that can get through to them. but she has her own agenda.in the end they usually see that all that radiance they get is just a honeytrap . they either break off, flying in shame to darker hiding places, or they turn vindictive, slamming into something, usually the sun.

some planetoids and planetecimals, spin round themselves, trying to escape abusive partners. they often fail, and get tidal-locked to real creeps, who squeeze them so hard thay thet burn on the inside. you won't see the pain on the outside easily. they are quite experienced with covering up the violance.

but it is possible to see. i will not name names, but tiger-stripe fissures don't show up if you are leading a happy life.

planets i try to not take as patients. they will give you a whole song and dance, but you know the truth is deeper, and you wont ever get there, the way the go on. freezing up tectonically is not a solution to existential enui, neither is engulfing stray bodies, just for putting up some trophy rings. if you want us to look at you, and feel you then just talk. no one buys this ostentatious crap. i dont care how dense you are in the core, or how rich you are in hydrogen.

i will conclude by saying something about neutron stars. those guys roll with the punches. they lost so much of their mass, entire strata gone. but do they give up? no.

do they just say, 'screw it. i'm going to implode?' No they do not. they take all that pain, all that angular monentum and just keep going. it doesnt matter to them . they are hard and bright and they can do so much with so little. they are the real stars.

You know, a homeless person is also a person, people call him homeless,

As if a homeless person is a separate kind of person.

But we are all made of bones and flesh that tend to break.

I'm not a poet, I'm just expressing my thoughts on this piece of paper.

He lies exhausted on the cardboard, clutching a dolar in his palm.

The wheels of cars are racing along the sidewalk, the dust, fighting back, lies in an even layer.

He was asleep, curled up, wheezing could be heard from there.

I couldn't help but notice him as I passed by.

I greeted him, got down on one knee.

Hey, friend, are you alive? I asked him.

The homeless man angrily replied, "Get out, dog."

But he's partly right.

I want to help you.

To which he replied with eyes with red pupils.

I handed him a loaf of bread, I was taking him home for dinner, take it...

did you come to poison him? Get out, go your own way.

The homeless man jumped up, waving his arms to the sides, driving me away.

I wanted to help him without understanding anything.

I left $20, putting it in his pocket.

He followed me with his eyes for a long time.

I was walking home, mentally remembering the plot, but he is someone's son and where is his mother.

Biting off a loaf, as in childhood, gnawing through a slice.

I was in a hurry for dinner, my wife will be angry.

He was heretofore under the (evidently faulty) impression that he had thoroughly exhausted his interest in the opposite sex during the preliminary folly of jejunity. Though it could not be denied that women had once procured a peculiar weakness in him, he had (some months ago) decided to get over that vice in favor of more rewarding appetites. After all, he had always found them more annoying than alluring on the whole, even when enduring his most ardent vitiation.

Instead, his books - or rather the public's books - which were carefully lavished with his pristinely dust-jacketed and Dewey-Decimal-Classified affection, were now (or so he had previously presumed) his sole life's passion... Though he understood of course that he was still relatively young; 26 to discover the slightly more exact metage after a moment of incredulous anamnesis, and that he must stop thinking about himself as though he was factually wizened or advanced within the spectrum of human condition, even if he felt that his erudite soul would be better manifested within an old man. He now simmered in a kind of existential shame, silently declaring himself fatuous for ever having thought himself immune to being dominated by basic instinct; for who but an extreme imbecile would ever presume power over the natural order of life?

She wasn't even very pretty. Well, she was pretty enough he guessed.

But the library, by his reckoning, commanded respect and silence; silence not only of sound but of person - reverence even - the same sort of veneration which a glass cathedral inspires in a devout believer. Yet it was into this precious building - this sacred and foreboding den of man's timeless ingenuity and knowledge - which she waltzed; carelessly, chaotically. Inserting herself amongst the sacramental texts and transcendent volumes of ancient wisdom (of - as he so often speculated- the culminated pondering of generations) which she dared to sit. Here! Dared, yes; dared. Oh how she dared him: Slouching salaciously (left-hand fingers tousling her voluminous red hair, which smelled, even from this far away, subtly of vanilla and mint) she dared to sit, and text!

She was glued to the phone, (his eyes lingered on the object of her attention with a massive disgust) absorbed in an activity which was not welcome. No indeed... not at all welcome; nor even permitted in this scholarly realm. (Even the other librarians had agreed on this basic rule; a rare point of unanimity among his particular coworkers, who were usually squabbling over many more or less obvious measures and suggestions against the cardinal sin of library desecration; frivolities on which he held back opinion, even though a certain judgement formed within him involuntarily now and then, one of which being the use of cellphones in the vicinity of books, almost all of whose corporeal pages contained worthier aspects of thought for consideration than anything phones had to offer.)

He envisioned the inevitable confrontation, replaying it in his head before it began. For it must begin; he must inform her of the rule, and he would do it presently, despite how ominously this unexpected duty imposed itself upon him...

"excuse me, miss" he would start..

But that was no good. "miss" sounded too disingenuously polite coming from a stranger, didn't it? A strange young male, as he reminded himself, disgusted with anatomical reality as he recalled his unfortunate physical appearance of this morning and extrapolated an approximate mental image of his present presentation...the acne-scarred face surrounded by disheveled over-long hair -which was prone to greasiness, and which may even be visibly greasy now he surmised, having been exposed to the discomforting warmness of this afternoon of working, for he had sweated a bit earlier... It was then, not without consternation, that he found out he had sweated not only with his scalp but also with the rest of his body, (it must have been while he was pushing the heavy book-return crate with the broken wheel he reasoned) for his clothes were clinging to his flocculent form (which was slothfully lank and chubby at the same time, being somewhat unaccustomed to exertion, unlike his mind) and perhaps he even stank of body odor now, though he couldn't smell himself, but it was often difficult to discern one's own olfactory condition, what with the mind's propensity to automatically command the senses to ignore insignificant or familiar information... oh how he hated physicality whenever he thought of it, which mercifully wasn't often.

No indeed, "excuse me miss" would be no good at all. Just about everybody had dismissed the convention of calling young ladies "miss" anymore... it might even come off as rude or creepy, given the unremitting context of reality...

It occurred that he was staring at her.

He felt awkward for staring, during the initial moment of realizing he was doing it, but, as she had not noticed him yet, soon the awkwardness morphed into a delightful apprehension; became a kind of thrill, guessing when she would turn. Like in the moment of a strategy game when one is fortuitously confident in one's own ability despite not knowing all that will happen next.

And it is true that he did not expect what happened next: She suddenly noticed, not him, but one of the numerous "no cellphones" signs lining the walls, and put away the phone of her own volition, exhibiting an expression of fretful innocence and (glancing around to see if she had been caught in her unintentional crime) finally caught sight of him staring at her. His heart raced, stricken by compunction; for instead of being in the heretofore unappreciated but now obviously advantageous position of having caught her in her crime of texting, it was now he who was caught in his crime of looking.

But instead of judging him, her lips (and it must be understood at a glance that they were soft lips) twisted up into a genial expression; a smile. yes, it was definitely a smile. He looked around at the sudden void of the corner shelf and ascertained that the smile was definitely directed at him. Then she added compliment to flattery; using the previously hair-entangled fingers to perform a maladroit wave of acknowledgment on top of the gracious clemency.

It was during that instant - that sudden eternity - which he fell in love.

But a second later logic made a sympathetic attempt to reassert itself. Love? pah. Nonsense. He'd never needed to cling to such a faultily immature explanation for sexual excitement before; merely an instinct hellbent on propagation, nothing supernatural or meaningful in it... Surely he did not require the term 'love' now to explain away this straightforward, purely biological reaction...

She was sure to be thinking him creepy by now in any case, a judgement for which he didn't blame her at all. She rightly ought to be considering him thusly, for he was a creep, objectively; creepy looks, creepy thoughts, creepy lack of what would anyway be a creepily returned smile. Yes she must hate him quite viscerally already.

What was even worse than all this easily-forgotten creepiness was the fact that his only excuse for talking with her was now gone. The moment of querulous opportunity which had presented itself in the form of an unwanted obligation to protect the library's integrity had been lost forever because of his penchant towards over-cautious contemplation - incidentally, he just now realized, she was so incontestably lovely that perhaps she wouldn't have minded being called miss after all? - and now he wallowed again in egotistical despair for a moment before returning to his tremulous senses.

He hesitated, waved back to her in a unintentionally brisk motion, bobbed his head once in what he sincerely hoped would be taken for a gentlemanly nod, then decisively broke his lengthy scrutiny of her (at least with his eyes, though not with his thoughts, which he was less in control of now than ever before, the same way an athlete's muscles inexplicably give out under perplexingly little pressure despite all his practice to discipline them, not because of weak musculature it is to be understood, but rather from an exhausted sympathetic nervous system. Yes this didn't mean that he was forever weak, obviously - it mustn't mean that. A man must defend his strength where he finds any, if only to himself, else succumb to the relentless flagellation of impotence.) In any case he pulled his eyes away from her (though they badly wanted to linger for an even more inordinate amount of time) and attempted to utilize his currently overly physical sight - his will-crushingly, lamentably ocular sight - to attempt to train his conscious mind back to his work; back to his books; back to the soul of man.

~~~

The next day she returned. He saw her through the window first before she came inside. She was standing still in a wistful pose, observing the swallows which were nesting up in the metal awning of the large brick building. He mulled on the intricate loveliness of that moment; she, the admiring observer of nature, being unbenownstly observed by an admirer of her own. (Admirer was going a bit far, he chastised his inner dreamer.)Though it was a natural enough chain of vision (man; girl; birds...) it seemed to him that something ethereal occurred within it, aided perhaps by the fact that she was outside, behind the glass, thus they were connected in silence, caught in a silent reverence for nature. ... But nature is in essence chaotic as much as it is silent, is it not? In theory the lover of nature should appreciate moments of loudness - of cheeps and squawks and growls - as much as moments of serenity.

How can one even be sure that something is real if it causes no discomfort?

But this musing soon spiraled down into the never ending pit of subjectivism, a trap in which he hadn't allowed himself to earnestly fall for quite a number of years, and he realized that he was suddenly stupid again, just like yesterday. His thinking was clouded; his superior faculties lost. He was just another idiotic male in a long line of idiotic maleness. This was terrible. For without his mental prowess what did he have to offer?

Offer who? He scoffed at himself indignantly. Offer her? Surely not even his subconscious mind deigned to imagine his circumspect self in such an outrageous position... Soon she hesitantly tore her eyes away from the swallows (in much the same way he had torn his away from her yesterday) and proceeded into the building.

~~~

She approached the front desk.

~~~

Suddenly the possibility of interaction seemed profusely excruciating. One of the other librarians would have to attend her he decided, though there were none around at present, and, if he were thinking, (if indeed he was still capable of the act) he'd have realized that the other librarians were off for the rest of the day, but nothing like that mattered right now, for he needed nothing more or less than to escape. Escape!

It was just so, in this agitated state of being, and pretending not to notice her, he started to stroll - no, amble would be a more accurate description of his mode of transport - through the aisles, looking for an excuse to look busy; perhaps some bratty child had had the charitable foresight to pull the encyclopedias out of the bottom rows and leave them on the carpet again? Oh how he looked for the art of looking busy. But it was all for naught; his efforts to find efforts were in vain; the books had already been set into perfect order by his previously conscientious activities, and it had been a slow day, so there was no adequately pressing matter to distract him from his current plight of attraction (no, of purely squalid preoccupation, he ventured to convince himself.)

He was getting an erection, as if to prove his moot point that it was only a physical attraction, and that nothing socratic or platonic dwelled within the emotion; but rather a base, animalistic instinct to procreate. This erection was highly inconvenient though. What deleterious timing! (Deleterious to what? what did it matter if there was no chance of copulation anyway?) He should have jacked off this morning, or last night... it had been almost a week since he last got off. And he thought he would be fine just going to work in this state? That he had control of his own willpower? It was an incredible arrogance, that's what; yes, a contemptible hubris...

Down! He silently ordered his cock, and when ukase failed he fell to the futile attempt of reasoning with it; come now, let's be civil, he pleaded, if she saw you she would be sure to think I am the biggest pervert she ever encountered - Saw? - if she saw... oh god! His inexorable erection grew harder at every attempt to placate it. It was pressing strongly up against his pants now; the pressure only stimulating further growth with each pulsation. There was nothing he could do. Everything felt too good. Relaxing felt good, as did tensing up. It was a vicious cycle, a viciously pleasurable, terrible cycle.. she might glance at him at any moment. Fuck, she was walking towards him! Damn humanity! He didn't have time for this! He needed an excuse to quit standing, quit displaying, quit making it so obvious. He crouched down, (dick constricted painfully under the merciless fold of his metal zipper) examining the bottom shelf, pretending that something was out of place there among the dictionaries.

"Excuse me sir," she began shyly from behind him.

Sir? She called him sir? Really? What an unmistakable sign of approbation; of gracious equanimity; of tactful cordiality... not to mention how sweetly antiquated of her. She was smiling again too. Smiling at him? But of course, there was no one else there. No one else at all, he realized quite scandalously, no one in the whole building. They were alone. A drop of pre-ejaculate leaked from the tip of his penis, creating a slight blot of dampness on his underpants. Maybe he did love her after all. Oh what a fool; what a complete and total idiot he had been to assume that it was simple lust which stirred this accord within him. His face turned red with the odious pangs of probable misunderstanding. He was so ghastly. She was so elegant. Her dress was flowing and feminine, cut just above the knees. She was wearing navy leggings under it and black sandals with a floral pattern to them which looped around the big toe.. her toes were very pale and lovely. Damn this foul lechery. Why didn't he answer her? Why? It was obvious. He knew full well why he hadn't the gall to speak to this angel. But he hadn't the gall to ignore her either. What a predicament. Enough of this vile torment. An erection was a natural, easily explicable biological function after all; it wasn't as though he was hurting her. No more unforgivable than a dog humping a tree really, was it? And canine males were forgiven their indiscretions by adoring women all the time. Why not human males? Indeed it might even be taken as a form of flattery, or at least amusement, possibly, if one thought about it. Right? But no, interspecific interactions had different rules than intraspecific ones, didn't they? In which case he needn't worry, for he was obviously a different species to her entirely! Yes, nothing like her whatsoever. He wallowed once again in the inapt stupidity of his thoughts. Asinine, cockamamie, cock-a-doodle damn!

"Yes miss?" he answered, far too late it seemed to him, or perhaps (as he now considered in this moment of woefully disproportionate perception) too quickly? Too eagerly? He still wondered how the epithet 'miss' would be received, though now he suspected comity for the equally archaic terminology with which she had addressed him, after all, 'miss' was the perfectly complimentary return for the dignity of 'sir'... yes he was still a sir, a sir to her... so long as she hadn't noticed... He glanced up at her respectfully without turning his head, (certainly he could not face her fully, let alone stand...) What was she going to say? Was she gong to confront him about yesterday's looking incident? No she was far too gracious to pass harsh judgement upon a stranger for doing something as oblique as looking. Indeed one could tell by the vivacious sweetness of her demeanor that she hardly ever passed judgement on anybody prematurely. What then? He waited what seemed like an infinity for her to ask what she came to ask, each infinitesimal moment adding upon the perspicuity of the overtly observable datum that he had no business with the dictionaries...

"I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of Shakespeare?" She inquired innocently - no, not quite innocently, he thought - he entertained the notion for a second of being humorous and pointing up towards the heavens, but after-all, he realized that humor was not his strong suit, so he gave up on the idea of acting in any way human and instead summoned enough hatred for his own cowardice to cast caution to the wind and stand up before her.

"Certainly. I'll be glad to escort you to the correct section." He proposed, suddenly impressed by the unexpectedness of his own audacity. Would she see it? Would she say something? Would she invent an excuse and back away from him in horror? Well? Did she notice? He regarded her uncertainly for a moment, cock still bulging at least indecently if not flagrantly, though slightly ebbed from it's formerly full erection on account of an equally primitive abashment counteracting his initially cocky resolve. Ultimately he decided that it didn't matter either way. If she noticed she noticed, and if she didn't she didn't. He couldn't control the outcome.

"That'd be great, thank you." she accepted his offer simply, after what seemed like another miniature eternity.

He suddenly got the idea of offering her his arm like a saintly old gent. This was another disquieting quirkitude, springing from the same compulsion which provided him the dauntlessness to stand up, which, however, he only found out he was perpetrating as he was already doing it; holding out his elbow and raising his chin invitingly. To his extreme astonishment she accepted it and began walking alongside him, arm in arm, as though it were the most natural thing in the world... As though he were her father or uncle or brother. He liked the feeling immensely.

She had twelve freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were green, and kind of glossy, he now noticed. Had she been crying?

"Are you alright?" He blurted, heedless of social convention, which was something anyway to which he could already tell she paid as little mind as he did.

"You're the only one who's ever regarded me with such blatant curiosity." She observed aloud. "I noticed it yesterday. Most people are pretentious, but not you... To answer your question I'm upset by relatively small upheavals at the moment; I'm in a new place and I'm lonely. But I will be alright." She smiled again, and this time her smile was returned by his.

"Here's the bard." He indicated to the shelves of the plays and collected works with his free arm, reluctant to end this strangely intimate connection. "Do you need it for school?" He asked.

She laughed. "I don't go to school anymore. I'm a veterinary assistant across the street there. I just started yesterday. I don't have a car so the library seemed like a good place to wait after my shift ends, for the next bus to come, you see."

"I see." He nodded amiably. "It is all falling into place. You seem like you would be good with animals."

"Thank you." Her smile started to contain a very genuine fondness.

"So you'll be back tomorrow then?" He presumed with an air of hopefulness.

"Indubitably." She agreed.

~~~

She approached the front desk.

~~~

It was then he realized, with a noisome jolt, that whole affair since he obsequiously abandoned his post at the front desk had been entirely in his head; the work of his imagination over the last three to five seconds between when she had left the visibility of the window to when she had entered through the revolving glass door and begun walking towards him. And it happened that she was there in front of him again, but really this time; suddenly, gloriously, deplorably, startling him out of his daydream about the fictional version of her. He was suddenly very grateful for the cover of the desk, which masked the self-inflicted predicament which the recent oneiric reverie had stirred in his pants.

"Hi." She greeted him politely, bouncily, chain-watch jingling on the desk as she leaned her elbows on it in a slightly too familiar fashion. He wished he hadn't thought of her as so sweetly agreeable now, for it seemed too good to be accurate to reality; yet she was beaming at him; giving him nothing to refute his fantasy about her. It might as well be the truth of the matter; he was in love with her. Love at first sight? Ridiculous.

"How can I help you?" He replied, awkwardly, professionally.

"Do you have a copy of Hamlet I can borrow?" She asked with obvious eagerness.

He stared dumbfounded at her for a moment, aghast at the approximate accuracy of his predilection. How had he...?

"Of course." He replied, smiling at her (twelve!) perfect freckles in spite of himself. "Do you want it in hardcover or paperback?"

"Hard." She answered, sporting a quirky, suggestive grin.