Librarianies

One shelf, stretching down a mile long hallway. The carpets are a mundane brown. Spotless windows follow the shelf all the way down, casting a serene light across all the multi-coloured books. There are no panels on the windows and they don’t seem to be attached to either end of the hallway. An oak ladder is attached to the top of the shelf and painted bright red like the roof of a plastic doll’s house. You can move the ladder to any part of the shelf with the kick of your leg, rolling yourself effortlessly from one end of the hallway to the other. The top of the shelf is chipped and jagged from the ladder being pushed. There are no doors out of my library; it’s on the top floor of a launderette so the faint swishing of washing machines can be heard below.  The walls at the end of the hallway are an icy white, completely bare of colour apart from a laminated a4 piece of paper at each end that states ‘Library’. The shelf is divided equally into four categories, each with its own colour. There’s section one: Fun. This is a murky green. Section two: Interesting, which is coloured a dark ocean blue. Section three is a tie-dye pattern of the previous two sections colours and is titled ‘Smart’. Section four doesn’t have a title, or a colour. It’s just the balsa wood of the shelf and is void of books.  Each category is comprised of books that are recommended and purchased by the laundrette workers downstairs who are foundation arts course graduates.