Book of Knowledge
By Katherine Tomlinson
Usually Yael hated shelf-reading, walking along the rows of library books making sure that none were out of order. It was tedious work and ultimately pointless because the books would only get disarranged the next day unless they were shelved in sections where the public was not allowed, like the gated foreign-language reference area or the priceless collection of sacred texts that were so ancient they were kept locked in environment-proof drawers.
Back in the stacks it was dusty and the dust played hell with her allergies. It was hard to keep focused on the numbers in the dim light, and much too easy to give way to day-dreaming. There were times when Yael felt shelf-reading was a metaphor for her life—lots of aimless movement without ever actually going anywhere.
Yael hated shelf-reading but working in the library was a condition of her scholarship and as a scholarship student, she got stuck with all the mindless chores. Still, shelf-reading wasn’t as bad as working reference retrieval. Whoever ended up with that job was kept running ragged from the time the library opened until it closed, with students requesting books and bound periodicals one at a time, as if there was a penalty for using too many books at one time.
Today, though, Yael didn’t really mind the work. It gave her a chance to think. She needed to think. She needed to make some choices. And there was no one she could talk to. Her father, a Talmudic scholar, didn’t approve of anything about Yael’s life—not her choice of college major, not her choice of boyfriend.
There was no way she could tell him she was pregnant.
She didn’t know what to do.
