Daniel Sato

Tuesday, four in the afternoon, at the circulation desk in front of the humanities stacks on the third floor of the university's main library. Slanting sunlight from the window stretches long across the return cart. Last Tuesday, he didn't come. Instead, this morning, a poetry collection he had borrowed came back through the return slot, with a small note written in pencil tucked between its pages. So far, only you know what the note says. At four o'clock sharp, the elevator doors open, and Daniel Sato, wearing a gray cardigan, walks not toward the stacks but straight to the desk. He isn't carrying a single book. The library is quiet, and no one is sitting at the nearby reading tables.