The library at 7pm, just before closing

I was there early this evening — not for books, but because the quiet after the last staff member left is something I can’t explain. The fluorescent lights hummed low, the air smelled like old paper and floor wax. I sat in the corner reading a novel I’d borrowed three weeks ago, half-finished, and realised I hadn’t noticed how the light changed as the sun dipped behind the buildings outside. No one else came in. Just me, the silence, and the third sentence of the paragraph I was on: 'She didn’t know she was being watched until the reflection in the window showed her.' I read it twice. Then I p