I was in the library, late at night, sitting at one of the quiet side
desks facing the window on one of the isolated upper floors. At this
time of night, nobody else was there, and I was sitting there alone
trying to finish what remained of my fluid mechanics assignment. It was
stupidly hard, I didn’t understand a thing and I was poorly motivated.
Half way through, I started to lose focus and just plonked my head on
the desk. Before I realised, I had begun writing the name of the girl I
liked in my notebook. Just writing her name over and over again. And
before I knew it, I became drowsy and fell asleep.
And I dreamed.
I dreamed that she was making her way out of the library, but then
she saw me. She saw me sleeping soundly on the desk, and her eyes
gravitated to my hand which was still clutching the pen, and then to the
lines of writing in my notebook, and then to the endless columns of her
name that slowly became illegible before abruptly stopping. She
smiled, brushed her hair from her cheeks, and then gave me a peck on the
cheek. And then she briskly skipped away.
When I finally came to, I looked at the clock in front of me and saw
that I had slept for more than an hour. I still felt the softness of her
kiss lingering on my cheek and slowly brought my hand close to her kiss
as if in religious reverence. Was it all just a dream? I was about to
say so. But then I realised there was a distinct coolness on my cheek. A
trace of some moisture from her lips was unmistakenably, definitely,
there.
I leapt out of my chair and began searching through the aisles,
trying to find her. But she had long already disappeared in the
labyrinthine corridors of the library.