Potential

	I admired a beautiful woman for too long the other day. Some would I "stared", but I don't believe in staring. When she finally noticed my gaze she shot me the "fuck off" face I've come to expect. It didn't hurt me, I was just confused, as always, why she was upset.
	Lately, several such incidents have occurred. When I mention it to anyone, they just blame it on my youth. They say, "A man in his sexual prime such as yourself? It's only natural!" Well, I'm paraphrasing. But that's basically what they say.
	Somewhere between the lady the other day and now I made the mistake of "staring" too long at a woman who had a boyfriend. Of course, all the other victims of my non-crime probably also had boyfriends, but this one was actually in the immediate vicinity. He asked me if I had a problem. I didn't answer. His reply to nothing was "That's what I thought." I wanted to say, "I figured as much." But he wouldn't get it and neither would his girl, because it's a joke that only works on paper. Verbally it's useless. Instead I just shifted my eyes toward the dead bird festering in the gutter. Half the ants devouring it were black. Strangely, enough, I couldn't tell what color the others were.

	There's the potential that cancer cells are within me right now. I can't know unless I go to the doctor, and even they can still miss them. Either way, I'm not going, so it will remain a mystery.
	My mom thinks she's solved this mystery. There's no possible way my mother, nor anyone else, could solve it. Not only is there insufficient evidence, evidence itself is completely absent. But she claims to have solved it, due to the mere potential.
	"You're going to die from lung cancer for sure."
	As I've said, the potential is there. I do smoke cigarettes and despite them being advertised as "additive free" they aren't "safe." It says so right on the package, in big red letters that contrast the baby blue box: NO ADDITIVES DOES NOT MEAN A SAFER CIGARETTE. That isn't evidence of cancer though.
	I just shrug and walk out the door. As the door slams shut, another sentence, just as stupid and irrational as the first, is cut in half. Part of me would like to imagine the look on my mother's face. Really though, it isn't worth the effort, so I just get in my car and start driving to the library.

	The library is too depressing today. I can't really place the origin of its dreariness. The librarians have always seemed to hate me. Also, the library is empty. However, the possible hatred of these librarians hasn't ever really bothered me and the emptiness of the place is actually preferable to the usual mass of phone addicted college students who populate the surrounding campus. So neither of those factors can be the root of this bleak atmosphere.
	Christianity built this library. Or at least, Christianity inspired it. The college, while being rather secular and liberal in many areas, was founded as a Protestant University. Its architecture, inspired by late 19th century England or some shit, is tied together by a big Romantic chapel in the middle of it all. But, it appropriates the imagery and mythology of some Indian or Native American tribe. Is this a transgression?
	What I mean is, even if there's nothing spiritual about it, maybe there are some kind of physical forces which we have yet to discover, which can be channeled through codes and symbols. If this is true, the collusion of two or more of these symbol-elements could produce undesirable new entities. Mustard gas is produced when two particular elements that, in the interest of one's good health at least, should never be brought together are fused for x length of time. Could there be a similar issue here? Has the inappropriate, even irresponsible mixing of the symbolism of righteous and heathen for the fifty or so years this school existed produced an etheral toxin?
	I guess it doesn't matter. None of this can be proven and even if other people fin it interesting, it's still useless. Uselessness is in abundance these days. In fact I would say it's even in excess. I want to do something that matters. That's why I came here in the first place. Under normal circumstances this library yields some of my highest productivity rates. But for now it's too depressing.

	There's two types of Old Downtown Guys.
	One sect of Old Downtown Guys wear suits and ties. They spend their days in the highest offices of the tallest buildings in my city, which aren't really tall at all relative to the bigger cities in my state. Still, they're the tallest buildings in my city, which means something important to the Suit and Tie sect of Old Downtown Guys. It has to. Because within the crevices of their always crunched faces and the cracked lips of their perpetual motion mouths are hints of a wasted life only now revealing itself.
	The other sect of Old Downtown Guys are homeless men. They walk through the shimmering sidewalks the same way a sidewinder traverses the desert. They wear backpacks and tattered jeans and they always have a jacket or coat, even on hot summer days such as this one. None of them shave but not all of them have beards. They too contain signs of squandered souls in their shriveled skin, yet they remain happy. For they realized long ago that they'd wasted anything they once had which resembled existence, and now they wallow in their worthlessness.
	In my view both are immensely stupid. As I'm smoking a cigarette outside, members of both sects pass by me several times, and I can't help but fantasize a moment where I walk up to one or another and shove the cherry into their eye. If only they could have an eye burnt of their skull. I can't really say why, but for some reason I feel it would help them learn something.

	A brief wave of anxiety shudders through me. I'm worried someone has stolen my books and coffee. Mathematically, this is probably not plausible. Then again, I failed math class, so I don't know why I'm giving arithmetic any authority at all in my life. Everything I fail seems to rule me long after the fact.