The Woman in the Small Glasses

I sat on the fifth floor of the university library that looked over the Scottish landscape of city houses, church steeples, and rugged green mountains in the distance. Equal parts developed cement and rough terrain. As I daydreamed, an older woman walked to my table and sat down. She didn’t wear any makeup and her hair was a mousey brown with little strands of grey. She wore a purple long sleeved shirt with a pair of small, round purple glasses that a college kid would wear ironically. She opened her books and worked for a while and then gradually began to drift into her own thoughts. She looked around and stared with a look that could almost be perceived as angry or intense. She leaned forward and rubbed her fingers against her eyes. When she looked up, she looked like she might be crying. Her eyes were red, slightly watery. She looked exhausted, like she needed to pray or sob. Thoughts ran against her eyes like a projector against a screen. She looked like her heart had been tested and she might succumb to her trial. Her face showed everything that she perhaps didn’t want to tell or couldn’t tell. Then she packed her things, put up her glasses, and walked away.