I visit the local library for the first time in at least ten years. It is no longer my local library, but still my parents’, and still local enough. I go because first I took myself to brunch at a café down the road and
had substandard poached eggs that offered me thin white egg juices on the first incision, and dark orange yolk on the second, amalgamating into mush on the plate. I had wanted to write in the café, but brunch then felt like less of a treat and more of a mission.