SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND

by Larry Boisen

I tried not to think of food, but my dog, Toby, continually let me know that he wasn’t getting enough to eat. I received enough money from begging yesterday to buy him some Purina moist and meaty dry food and some cheese and crackers and Cutey tangerines for myself. The tangerines were inexpensive, but they and the dog food weighed down my Safari jacket. I rationed them out one a day, but in my sleepless stupor I couldn’t remember whether or not I had eaten that day.

Some mysterious force had guided me to the library, but I wasn’t sure what it was that I was supposed to do there. It was as if this force had control of my every action, but it didn’t seem to possess any logic in its choice of a course of action for me. But, of course, what logic was there to bringing a dog into a public library? It wasn’t that public.

The librarians hesitated a moment as I entered, perhaps thinking that Toby was a seeing-eye dog. But they soon must have realized that I wasn’t blind – or was I? They told me that I wasn’t allowed to bring a dog into the library. I inexplicably ignored them and continued on towards the racks of DVDs with Toby at my side, which also made no sense, since I not only didn’t own a DVD player, but I was, in fact, a homeless sixty-four year old woman. My sole possession was Toby; my dear faithful Toby, whom I could never possibly part with.

More and more I felt a swelling up of an emotion of utter confusion. I was totally out of self-control. I was a mere marionette, the strings of which were being manipulated by some unseen, seemingly irrational force.

I resisted as one male and two female librarians lead me out of the library. What was I to do now - tie my poor Toby outside to a trash can? If I did this would I be able to re-enter the library sans canine or was I permanently a persona non grata?

I tied Toby to a bike stand, gave him some of the dog food and re-entered the library. The only resistances that I was met with were stares of disbelief. I walked over to the DVD section. What on Earth was I looking for?

“Where is God, where is God?” I screamed as I ransacked the racks of DVDs, and the librarians, this time four of them, quickly escorted me to an office where someone phoned the police while the others attempted to hush my wailing. No, I hadn’t mistaken the library for a church. I had already been to a church and also had been ejected from there. I had already been many places seeking Him.

But I wasn’t finding God anywhere, especially not in my homeless soul.