My freshman year of college was academically intense. I studied for at least five hours every day, including on weekends.
My university had small libraries associated with every dorm, where I would often work on Friday nights. These were standalone buildings made of stucco, with one large room outfitted in a few tables, desks, and bookshelves. The furniture was a little dated. The couches had a few stains, the bookshelves were well-worn. The desks that had once been white were now yellowed. It felt like a relic of the university’s heyday in the 1960s, and I enjoyed the academic mustiness of the space, and the quiet.
On these Friday nights, I’d often be the only one in the little library. It was only a 10-minute walk, out into the courtyard and along a tree-lined path, to get back to my room. The space felt peaceful, and productive. And one side of library had a view overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which was especially beautiful at sunset. Once dark settled in, though, the seaside windows could feel more ominous, facing out into the unlit blackness, without any kind of shades to draw.
On one of these Friday nights, shortly after dusk, I’d already been working for a few hours, cooking right along through a stack of homework, when I felt the hair on my neck and arms suddenly stand up. All of a sudden, I noticed the sound of the moths, bumping against the library’s large windows on the courtyard side, as the insects buzzed around the outdoor lights.
Then, one of the papers in my stack of homework to-dos began to slide. Just a little to the right. On its own.
I hadn’t recently touched the stack, or moved any papers onto or off of it, hadn’t bumped the table or shaken it, or readjusted anything. I wasn’t writing or erasing particularly vigorously.
Gently, I put down my pen and looked at the stack. That paper had definitely moved. Had anyone else seen? I looked around, but per usual, I was the only student in the room on a Friday after dark. I remember looking up, scanning the ceiling for an A/C vent that might have kicked on and blown the paper. Nothing. I turned around to see if the door was open and drafty. It wasn’t. The door was closed. The windows were all closed too, just looking out into the blackness of the sea at night, and the courtyard walking path with its moths buzzing.
I turned back to my stack of papers, it was level and hadn’t toppled over in the few seconds I’d been looking around.
But as I was looking at the stack, the top piece of paper did it again. Just the top piece. It slid to the right. The paper didn’t move like it was falling, or like the stack was collapsing and just needed to be picked up, and collated. No, the paper moved like someone’s flat hand was guiding it.
When I tell you I shot out of that chair. I slammed my hand on the whole stack of papers, shoved everything into my backpack, and NEVER studied after dark in there again. I still sometimes think about the feeling that came over me in the stillness after the paper moved for the first time. I remember looking around the room, trying to apply reason, thinking there must have been some logical explanation. And then, just as I was thinking this, the paper moved. There was no breeze, no open door, no draft, and no vent. Fifteen years later, I still don’t know what that was.
Creepy.