Chapter 2: November 5th Usual Seat

The week after I met the man in the library passed in the same muted rhythm I’ve gotten used to. Classes, lectures, office hours, meetings. I go through the motions, answering questions, pretending to pay attention, performing the role of professor in a way that feels less like acting and more like survival. I don’t know why I keep doing it. I don’t know why I keep showing up. I don’t know why I pretend that I care about the ethics of artificial intelligence or the implications of utilitarianism or any of the other things I’ve been talking about for twelve years. I am a ghost in my own classroom, and everyone is too polite to mention it.

My students seem to like me. They say I’m a good teacher. I don’t know what that means anymore. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a good teacher, or if I’ve just been a good actor. The difference used to matter to me. It doesn’t anymore.

On Tuesday night, I go back to the library. I tell myself it’s because I need to grade papers. I tell myself it’s because I have nowhere else to be. I tell myself I don’t care if that man is sitting in my seat again.

He is.

I see him as I turn the corner. He’s wearing the same grey wool coat, sitting in the same chair, looking out the same window at the same river. He hasn’t moved. He might as well be a statue.

I stop at the edge of the table.

“You’re here,” I say.

“I’m here,” he says.

“Every Tuesday?”

“Every Tuesday.”

I sat down. I take off my scarf. I fold it and put it on the table. He looks at it, and then he looks at me, and then he does something that surprises me. He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a notebook. It’s a plain black notebook, the kind you can buy at any bookstore for a few dollars. He opens it, writes something on the page, tears it out, and slides it across the table to me.

It says: What do you want?

I look at the note. I look at him. He is watching me now, his eyes steady and unreadable. He isn’t smiling. He isn’t waiting for a joke. He’s waiting for an answer.

What do I want?

I don’t know. That’s the problem. I haven’t known for so long that I’ve forgotten what wanting feels like. I want things; I guess I want to get through the day, I want to sleep through the night, I want to stop waking up at four in the morning and staring at the ceiling while my mind runs through every mistake I’ve ever made. But those aren’t wanted. Those are needed. Those are the things I need to survive.

What do I want?

I took the pen from him. I write on the back of the note.

To not be a ghost.

I slide it back across the table.

He reads it, and he nods. Just once. Then he takes the note, folds it, and puts it in his pocket.

I don’t know why that feels significant. It’s just a piece of paper. It’s just a note. But he tucked it into his pocket like it mattered, like it was something to keep, and I don’t know why that makes me feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.

The library hums around us. The river flows past the window.

We don’t speak for the rest of the night.

But I can’t stop thinking about what he asked. What do I want? I don’t have an answer. I don’t even know where to start looking. I’ve spent so long not wanting anything that I’ve forgotten how to want. I’ve spent so long just getting through the day that I’ve forgotten what it means to want something more than that.

I think about my father. I think about how he never wanted anything either. He was a quiet man, my father. He worked at a lumber mill in Duluth for forty years. He came home every day at five o’clock. He sat in his chair and read the newspaper. He ate dinner. He watched the news. He went to bed. He got up the next morning and did it all over again. He never complained. He never asked for anything. He never wanted anything.