Late Afternoon,
Wednesday, April 23rd 2008
Martin Luther King Memorial Library

It looked much better from the outside than in, this edifice of black steel and smoked glass. Leaky ceilings and broken elevators plague the readers moving listlessly around in the enforced hush. Designed in a less energy efficient age and treated with neglect, the library would cost more to put right than it would to pull down and build anew. At the height of summer, it's a pressure cooker, hot and close; even with spring cloud it's still rather warm. Not that Woody minds -- he's using his coat and jumper as a cushion because the chairs are all too low for him (or the tables too high). There are pens and paper on the table and he's reading a huge, illustrated, leather bound book that looks like it could weigh as much as himself. His headphones are on, despite the posted signs, but they make no noise. Why should they? They're not plugged in to anything.