The library opens at two in the afternoon on Thursdays, and Thursday is the only day that truly belongs to you. You know the grain of every table, the chair that wobbles, the angle where the light falls without dazzling. The world, here, is set lower. Outside it pounds: the car horns, the voices too loud, the doors; here it keeps its distance, behind the glass, and you can finally hear yourself think.

You open your notebook. That is where you live, for real, in this country you draw with your eyes half closed and that no one has ever seen. A city set upon a sea that is on no map. Time there takes on a different grain, the one that gives weight to what is felt.

Across from you, at the same table as every week, the regular reads, a book held in both hands. You do not know her name. You know her way of turning the pages without hurrying, and of glancing up now and then as if to check something in the room.

Someone stops near you, hesitates, looks at the free chair at your table, then at your bag on it and your things taking up a little too much room.