Kelly Oubre walked through the front doors of Washington D.C.’s central public library and stopped to assess his surroundings. He had never been in this library before. As far as he could remember, he had never been in any kind of library before. He didn’t know where the books he was looking for would be located, and he had no idea how to even start.
There was an older woman sitting at a desk underneath a large sign that said “reference”. Kelly walked up to her and waited for her to acknowledge his presence.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she said, looking up from her computer screen and peering at him over her glasses. “What can I help you with?”
“I’m looking for the books on voodoo and magic,” Kelly began. “But there’s too many books here and I don’t know where to look.”
Apparently pleased that there were still people who wanted to look at books, the woman rose from her chair and led him towards the proper section of the library. “I assume you’re asking about our non-fiction books on occultism. It’s right this way.”
Kelly didn’t know what “occultism” was, and he wasn’t quite sure he knew what “non-fiction” was either, so he just followed mutely. When they got to the proper aisle of books and he took a closer look at some of their spines, he was surprised how recent they were. “Um, don’t you have any, like, ancient tomes about magic? This is all stuff I could download online for free.”
The librarian bristled at the concept of downloading books illegally. “What you see here is our entire collection.”
“Yeah, but the thing is, I need to really curse this voodoo doll I made of Klay Thompson, not read some new-age mumbo-jumbo that pretends to be voodoo like all the stuff on the internet.” Kelly complained, pulling his crocheted Klay Thompson doll out of his pocket and showing it to the woman. “So the book with the voodoo curses in it needs to be at least…” He paused to do some mental calculations. “300 years old, and it needs to have been written by a real voodoo lady. None of these books are that old.”
“We don’t have anything like that,” the librarian replied coldly.
“This library sucks,” Kelly said. “How am I ever going to use voodoo magic to coerce Klay into giving me access to his home if my local library doesn’t even have the right books in it?” He shoved past the librarian and walked towards the exit. Then, he turned around and addressed the woman one more time. “Get ready for a one-star Yelp review, you wrinkly bitch.”
As he pushed open the door, he took another look at his Klay Thompson doll. “I hate you, Klay,” he whispered.