Murmur

Talking herself through the study session, she weaves layers into the room, room otherwise desolate. The sterile white fluorescence of lights keeps the few of us hunched, as though in private bubbles. Into our books, into silence. Chicks in eggs, separated from each other by shell, incubating.
But she talks.
I know she will be here until ten o'clock. Filling the space with a constant murmur, so comforting. So nourishing, comforting, coming through the egg shells like streams of talk from a mother. Like through umbilical cords.

I do not stare at her. I do not want to scare her. I only glance. Making sure of the identity, the identity behind the murmuring.

Then I take a longer draught. I savour that gulp of sight.
Sometimes she talks, eyes staring at the page. Lashes like blinkers, training her gaze.

Sometimes she talks, her head raised. Eyes trained somewhere over the tops of pages. Memorizing, the stream of talk still a constant.

Pouring herself into study like study is cups, like cups are there to catch her in. I see the subjects in the books catching in her mind like her mind is completely and utterly open, waiting, little hooks like hands in the walls.

All we hear is the lulling lisp of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, the moan of speech like a janitor's trolley at the other end of the corridor, ghosty and comforting.

She leaves, Early. People look around, awakened by the quiet. Then their heads go down, return to study.