I thought: "It’s almost night. It’s dark outside. It must be hard for him. His plans are to lay on the ground somewhere. Let him come in here for a while. There is light. There’s people, cozy in their chairs with their Apple laptops, with their smartphones and with earphones in their ears, with their university careers going just so smoothly, how good it is to be a student, it’s not really a hard life, you get to sit in a nice place like this newly opened library, full of free services, full of young people, of nice not-overworked librarians, who are pretty lucky people they have pretty good jobs... let the beggar come in, let him stay for a while, what, the library is for him too, it’s for every citizen, it’s free services for everyone, what is he going to do, sit on a chair, grab a paper, maybe even a book, stay there a while, kill some time, before going out on the street and sleep on the ground with a carton for a matress and a sleeping bag or an old blanket... let him stay. We can even go on with our stuff without feeling too bad about his presence, without falling into dim considerations about his life and about where he is going to sleep tonight versus where and how I am going to sleep tonight”.
Waaaah. Waaaah. (Very annoying siren noise. Like a wrong sound signal at a quiz game show).
“Attenzione! Sistema antincendio attivato. Evacuare i locali utilizzando le vie d’uscita”.
“Warning! A fire alarm has been activated. Please leave the building using emergency exits only”.
“Someone smoked in the toilet”, the female librarian who stayed at the desk said, after the male librarian came back from checking.
He went to check at the second floor. He knew he had to go there thanks to some fire alarm panel he had at his desk. Very good fire alarm, one must say.
When he came back after a minute, he said everything was fine.
He talked with the female librarian.
We asked the female librarian if we really had to leave the building, she said: “No, somebody just smoked in the toilet”.
“What a bum”, I thought, at the same time spotting the beggar – with a very hard tanned face, white trimmed beard, sport bag on his shoulder – at the exit door looking like he didn’t care, but also looking like he was trying to rush out.
Now that I think about it, he doesn’t look like one of those bummed out beggars, those depressed, impotent, helpless bums who you really feel sorry for. No, he looks more like an adventurer or something, like a pirate, or a gipsy chief, somebody who can take care of his own life and knows what he’s doing.
I felt guilty because as I spotted him I thought that obviously it had been the bum, but with no evidence I cannot say that it was obviously him.
Maybe it was some young student bum. “What a bum”, anyway. Smoking in the toilet and making the fire alarm go off...
And yet, it was obviously him. I know we should be good with the poor. I know we immediately accuse them when we see them among the others.
They look so different. Obviously there’s something wrong with that guy.
There is a charity food giveout by Caritas nearby, and you see a lot of beggars walking around all over the place all the time. Some of them are mentally ill. I mean, who isn’t? Surely it’s not a totally quiet area. They do cause some troubles.
I live exactly above the charity food giveout, I hear everything. I hear them waiting in line, or after they have received their portion. They argue a lot with each other, they raise their voices, they cry oud loud. They lay on the ground in the streets before and afterwards.
Once I heard a female librarian, different from today’s one, asking a beggar to leave immediately, and then justifying her action to bystanders saying that the same beggar once pooed on the floor in the snack room.
We have to cut the poor some slack. I know. But today clearly it was the case of a guy going into the library and smoking in the toilet just to do something wrong, just to annoy people.
Beep. Beep. Beep. (Different kind of siren. This is the sound of a proper siren).
“Attenzione! È in corso una verifica di possibile allarme. Attendere ulteriori indicazioni”.
“Warning! A possible fire alarm is under investigation. Please wait for further indications”.
These new phrases took over after a while.
The whole thing went on for about 15 minutes. Very loudly.
I started writing this since what I was doing previously was interrupted.
I must say this fire alarm seems pretty darn good. The phrases are translated really well. I bet they are originally in English – the alarm being from a US or UK manufacturer – and then translated in Italian.
If by any chance they were originally in Italian and then translated into English, they are pretty darn good translations!
Nothing of the sort that you find on trains, where usually there are literally translated translations.
So I was interrupted by the fire alarm and ended up spending half an hour writing this, breaking my schedule and going home later than planned.
I'll sleep less, I’ll be cranky in the morning, workday will just suck.
I hope this will make up to the poor a little bit. Even though it was obviously him and he is just guilty, probably just a bad person and not a victim guy...
Who is really guilty? I mean, this guy lives on the street, probably lives a very austere life, owns nothing... how bad will his tonight’s sin of smoking in the toilet and making a fire alarm go off score on his record in front of God?
I mean, compared to all the university kids sitting in the library with very expensive lives who only God knows how guilty they are...? And their families? How much they care about the poor, uh? This might just be their reward.
Study interrupted by a fire alarm, just because you try not to see the poor, but he gets into your library, given that he can’t get into your house!
I mean, maybe it was just a young university bum who smoked in the toilet, and all this accusation against the beggar who looked like a gipsy chief was just misplaced...
Though, he was the only one to rush out when the fire alarm went off, everyone else stayed in.
What a bum.
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