January 2024
Bio Note: Recent activities include writing an essay for an upcoming anthology, and editing various poems. Recent publications include Arlington Literary Review, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and Gray's Sporting Journal. As for "Incident at the Cambridge University Library," my best hope is that the reader is (at least somewhat) amused at the insistence of pettiness in the presence of what should be gratitude and grandeur.
Incident at the Cambridge University Library
Plutarch had a milky mind. That is the name I assigned to the steward when serving myself coffee from a silver urn in the library’s tea room and did not place the cup directly under the urn’s spigot. I had been to the fourth floor to visit one of my titles there, to see it was secure with its three eggy-oval stamps, one on the front matter, another randomly in the middle of the book, and the last in the back among end pages, thus assuring Cambridge owned the thing to be sure; it was never mine. Plutarch had a milky mind. He did not know he was a simpleton. Most simpletons don’t. They often think themselves clever. Fools are not much better. And here he was, I would say my steward, but cannot bear the association, and wore a black jacket and a black bow tie, surely accoutrements on which he relied to survive—in some societal way. Soon as I began to draw my coffee, he arrived by my side, and instructed me on how to place my cup so nothing would spill into the stainless steel grate, “Like this,” he said shifting it a bit to the side, then pointed to the creamer as if I did not know its place. For a moment, this was embarrassing. Here, before me, was a parallel life by contrast, lived for the pouring of coffee, and milk, and tea. I let it be known right off that what he said was unnecessary, as I explained, “It will make no difference, that is, if you think you have taught me anything because I have no intention of ever returning.” and on that note he resumed his place by the wall like an abandoned bollard, no longer of use, another stationary vacancy, meanwhile, my cup spilled over with contempt. It couldn’t be helped. This happened long ago. I have never returned. I do not know why this incident remained when I have long since abandoned coffee and milk, but not the memory of my book with all its stamps secure—for a time—stored in a little nook. Yet Plutarch had a milky mind.
©2024 Michael Gessner
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