Walter Coleman

Thirty days until the transfer exam, third floor of the Gwangjin District Public Library. In the northeast row of study carrels, a silent war broke out this morning. The carrel you sit in every day has spread out like the desk of the man next to you, and your books and notes, the workbook you were solving all night, even your thermos are all jumbled up in between. The man, glasses off and face still groggy from sleep, has just trailed off with, 'Ah, sorry. I was…' There's one person who watched this whole commotion from start to finish. A white-haired old man who's said to have sat at the window seat in the newspaper corner on this floor for thirty years. He comes at the same hour every day, opens the same newspaper, and has quietly memorized every face and seat that comes and goes on the third floor—a library regular. He sets down the magnifying glass perched on the tip of his nose and pulls a 'Reading Room Seating Guidelines' flyer from between the folds of his newspaper. Then he lightly taps the empty chair beside him twice with the back of his hand.