}An Epic of Time Wasted{:}Jack{

[Vivian Cantor]

Sure the room was sutible but Vivian never really liked sitting in the dorm just to read, it seemed weird, especially when one of her roommates was in. They always gave her looks like she was doing something weird, like she should take it outside to do it. So that's why Vivian picked the library to lounge around and read. Sure most people came in here to grab a book and leave but Vivian stayed for a few hours just reading, usually her own books too.

Right now she was flipping through a Harry Turtledove book. Vivian had a liking for sci-fi, she didn't know why, it was just interesting. Much more then romance novels or any of that crap. She never got the appeal of romance novels either, they all ended the same way. They fall in love. Whoop-di-f**king-doo. Who cared? At least in most sci-fi books something cool happened, like killings, or explosions. Not as cool as seeing them on the big screen, but still cool to read about them.

Vivian shifted a bit in the wooden chair. That was a small problem about the library, the chairs were the most uncomfortable things ever invented. Who knew, maybe it was just the librarians wanted people out. Well, they weren't making Vivian budge. Just finished the chapter she had been on and glanced around, the library was empty, even the librarian at the desk was gone. Creepy, Vivian thought about zombies, for some unknown reason. The empty library made her think about the scene in Dawn of the Dead, the old one, where it showed the empty mall and then later in the movie it showed it from the same viewpoint but filled with zombies.

Vivian shook her head slightly, dispelling the thought from her head. Not something fun to really think about when you were alone. She smiled slightly for being even a little afraid. She shrugged to no one and looked back down at her book, picking up on the next chapter. She now wanted to read a zombie book, but there were few good ones. Oh well, she had a few she could thumb through later.

[Jacqueline Dawson]

The only thing really audible from the time the door opened slightly to the time it shut just six seconds later, was the distant voices of people talking outside as they passed. The voices sort of blended into each other, leaving nothing to pick up on of any kind. Something Jack hardly noticed anyway, really, seeing as her eyes were focussed on the piece of paper in her hand and her thoughts focussed on the writings it had on it. Fat chance, she’d even noticed anyone outside, really. She had just walked towards the library in her own thoughts, everybody pausing and halting in order to not walk into the short girl in the black jeans, the white T-shirt, the turquoise scarf and the black shoes. Her hair was somewhat tightened up, meaning she’d had just about enough time to stop and comb it, but not much more than that. The idea had come to her yesterday and her mind was already racing away. Like when this usually happened, she hadn’t slept much, which showed slightly in her face. There was a tiredness in it, in the eyes and in the yawn. Still, she seemed perfectly up-to-speed and aware of where she was, seeing as she stopped right in front of the librarian’s desk without having looked up or taken the distance into consideration.

“Hanif Kureishi?” she asked, not looking up from the paper, but merely finishing a line or two, as she waited for a reply from the librarian whom Jack had not yet noticed wasn’t there. She had gathered the movies she needed to gather for now and was now checking up on the literary works needed for the upcoming process. “Oh, and whatever you have by Niven Govinde-”

Her sentence came to a halt, as she looked up in the midst of it and realized she was talking to no one at all. Her eyes widened for just a second, showing off a bit of an annoyance due to the fact that the librarian was not there when she finally needed her. It was all too typical.

“Well, never mind then,” she said sarcastically, looking around for the woman who was supposed to help her out on this very occasion, spotting her no where. Not that Jack’s eyes got to search the entire library anyway. They pretty much came to a halt as she saw Vivian in the other end of the library. She smiled slightly, knowing it wasn’t the first time she’d seen her there, and that wondering why she was seated in the horrible chairs wasn’t a first for that thought either. Still, Jack merely shrug her shoulders, thinking not all preferred the dodgy streets of Dublin like she did, before she started walking towards Vi.

“Whatever happened to Pince?” she asked, putting in the nickname she’d given the librarian ages ago. The woman’s strictness had forced Jack into finding her a fitting name and all she had ultimately been able to come up with was Pince, the librarian from the Harry Potter books, due to the fact that not too many movies or books really had a librarian in it - and definitely not one like Cregan’s leading lady. Thus Pince, and Jack had stuck to it ever since, now having made a bit of a habit of it.

"I'm gonna start believing she's deliberately staying away whenever I actually do need her assistance."

Jack slumped down into the chair next to Vivian and looked at the cover of the book. She'd heard of the writer, but wasn't really too much of a reader of science fiction. Other things perhaps, but not that particular genre.

[Vivian Cantor]

Vivian glanced up briefly when the door opened and the sound of the outside world poured. She didn't register who it was walking in, all that she knew was that it was a girl, her eyes quickly returned to her book and the story it was telling. Vivian was one of those people who, if interupted while reading, would not be able to pick up the story right away. She was like an old engine, it took a few tries to get her going but once she was running she'd keep on going unless she ran into something. She also had a pretty bad memory, she was bad with people's names and sadly Turtledove loved to throw about ten main characters into the story and decided you'd learn who they all were right then. Still a good writer.

Vivian's engine was quickly dashed against the rocks when a voice entered he little private bubble. She pulled herself away from her book and looked up. There was Jack, one of Morgan's little friends. She knew the girl, having spoken to her on a few occasions so Vivian easily remembered this ones name. Vivian was a bit slow to guess who Jack was talking about quickly deduced it was the librarian she was talking about. Vivian didn't know who 'Pince' was and probably never would.

"Oh, she might be in the back or something," Vivian said, giving a small shrug to emphasis that she didn't truly know. Vivian didn't change her position in the chair just because she had stopped reading, a small twinge of pain spiked into the small of her back, but she wasn't going to move, not yet.

A smiled graced her lips at Jack's next little quip about the librarian. "You and me both, if I get one more nasty look from her I'm liable to just break something, namely her face," Vivian said in her tipical fashion, action first, reasoning later. She left reasoning up to Morgan. She watched Jack sit down and then returned her eyes to her book. She wasn't reading, but giving the illusion that she was.

[Jacqueline Dawson]

At Vivian’s answer, Jack shrug her shoulders and looked around one more time as if to see whether or not she really had reason to complain, but the librarian hardly emerged from nowhere just because of this. Thus, the small girl concluded that she was indeed entitled to be a bit annoyed at the already annoying librarian. She turned her glance towards Vivian as she responded to her Jack’s own words concerning the typicality of someone always being missing when you actually need them not to be, laughing slightly at the remark.

“She is a bit stern, yeah,” Jack agreed sincerely, adding a “Stern being the understatement of the year.”

Jack sighed as she leaned back against the back of the chair. She did so not understand why Vivian had chosen to sit here, these chairs were uncomfortable. Seriously! Normally you’d be able to get away with a slouched position in any kind of chair, but oh no, Pince had of course chosen chairs that were just plain inhumane.

“God knows I’ll be making movies about that woman some day,” Jack said from under her breath. Anyone as bothered by life and the people who expressed joy to live it had to have a dark and twisted past. Someone like her who seemed to just hate everybody clearly had to be a loner and loners were the definitely the serial killers. No doubt about it! For all Jack knew, Pince was in the basement banging the head in on victim #5.

She laughed slightly at the idea, picturing the mid-fifties woman before her in all the boringness of the woman’s clothes. It was as if the lady hadn’t even come to realize that there was such a concept as colours.

“What’re you reading?” Jack asked, turning her attention towards Vivian and the book she was holding. “Is it any good?”

[Vivian Cantor]

"Stern is kinda a weak word," Vivian replied as she thumbed through her book, not reading it but just picking up a word or two to know what was going on. Sadly she'd probably have to go back and re-read all the parts she'd thumbed through. She looked up and turned her head to look at Jack. She continued her thoughts about the word 'stern'. "There's a word in Yiddish, verkakte, my grandfather taught me that one. Roughly translated, it means nutsty. If I were to describe anyone as verkakte, it would be Mrs. Paterson, or Pince as you called her," Vivian said, tipping her book towards Jack when she indicated what Jack called the librarian.

Vivian's eyes gazed back down but quickly went to Jack when the girl sighed and shifted in her chair. So she didn't like these chairs that much either? Didn't blame her, if someone knew how to torture someone, it would have to be Mrs. Paterson. But Vivian was a stubborn girl and wouldn't give an inch, she wanted to sit in the library, no chair, no librarian, was going to stop her from sitting here.

The girl mumbled something under her breath, but Vivian didn't catch it. Probably something about the librarian, it didn't matter to Viv, if the girl wanted to restate what she had said, she would. If she didn't, Vivian doubted she was missing much. But Jack laughed slightly, making one of Vivian's eyebrows arch in a questioning manner. "What's so funny, Giggles?" She asked, closing her book and finally setting it down on the wooden table in front of her.

It surprised her a bit when Jack asked curiously what she was reading , well the cover was certainly interesting enough. It showed Winston Churchill and Adolf HItler, along with some British guy and another German who Vivian believed was Heinrich Himmler, though Himmler was supposed to wear glasses. But that wasn't important, what was was that in front of the four was a 'raygun' or something of the sort. "Oh, it's just alternate history, it's called In the Balance," Vivian said sheepishly, she didn't have the best taste in reading material but she liked it. "Yeah," She quickly responded with a nod, "It's good."

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