In myrtles veil'd will I the falchion wear,
For thus the patriot sword
Harmodius and Aristogiton bare,
When they the tyrant's bosom gored,
And bade the men of Athens be
Regenerate in equality.

Oh! beloved Harmodius! never
Shall death be thine, who liv'st for ever.
Thy shade, as men have told, inherits
The islands of the blessed spirits,
Where deathless live the glorious dead,
Achilles fleet of foot, and Diomed.
-The Orations of Demosthenes

--

Among tall stacks of books, among dust and colors and words (so many words), lies a thousand stories. Among tall stacks of books lies a million stories in print but also there also lies a story of people. There, a person stands with glasses and an illicit cup of coffee. It’s fair-trade and it’s name is slightly illegible, the poor quality ink smudged.

It is 2:57 pm in a public library. The security camera pans the room with a slight squeak - the head librarian keeps forgetting to buy WD-40. A person with coffee walks in and nods at the women at the front desk, all buttoned up pink cardigan and shoes that stay silent on the entrance tiles. The person wanders in a way that seems rote, like it has happened time and time before, and it has. Three times a week, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, the person walks in. Three times a week, 2:57,  the person paces the same route.

The first time the person enters, the person is introduced to the women at the front desk. She is wearing a yellow cardigan here and looks a little rumpled. There is no nametag.

“I’m Harmodius,” says the person in a clear voice, “I’d like a library card. Please.”

The woman nods and says something along the lines of “I’ll get right on it sir.”

“Oh no,” says Harmodius, back straighter than before, “I’m not a man,” and the women looks alarmed. “Don’t worry, I’m not a women either. I prefer Elverson Spivak pronouns, ey/em/eir.” Ey grins but it’s not malicious, and it’s not quite cruel. It might border on mocking if looked at it from the right direction.

“I’m sorry,” says the women, bony fingers tapping the table, “what are you?” Her wedding ring glints in the light coming in from the skylights. The library is truly impressive, a feat of architecture but the people inside are as strange and complex as any other.

“A demon,” ey grins and turns away, plucking eir library card from the women’s hands. They radiate warmth and Harmodius’s hands are constantly cold. She smiles and Harmodius nods, not politely nor uncivil, something nearing condescending. Ey walks slowly away, one foot in front of the other, chucks thumping softly against the blue-gray carpet.

It is 3:04 in a public library. A girl in a tight shirt and tighter pants - or maybe they are leggings - steps though heavy wooden door. It is not the first time she has visited but she comes sporadically - Tuesday afternoons or Saturday evenings or any other time that catches her fancy. This day, however, is the beginning of a tradition, one of Tuesdays and whispers and glances full of confusion.

She has been coming to the library since her mother had to carry her and hold a finger to her lips to remember silence. This lesson did not sink in. It will not sink in.

The girl walks along the tall stacks and stops at a row of books with names such as “Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Attack on America by Ann Coulter” and “Evermore by Allison Noel”. She sneers at a David Levithan cover, and pulls another. Book after book go into her small gray bag,  and she continues on. Her heel catches on the carpet, and she stumbles, a slight gasp passing her pink-painted lips.

“Careful there Charlie,” calls out the librarian, and the girl turns.

“No one has called me Charlie since I was in third grade,” she speaks, her voice high and nasal, “I’m Charlotte now.” She toys with a loose string on her bag, and the librarian nods.

It is 3:16 in a public library. Cars can be heard vaguely from outside, the trees whispering in the wind. The library is quiet and the librarians rustle as she changes the page of the newspaper is easily heard throughout the rooms.

Harmodius is standing in the non-fiction section, between France and Germany. Eir impeccably painted nails play with eir phone case - pulling it off and pushing it back on again with soft clicks. They are not loud in the library, quiet like leafing through pages. On-off-on. A foot taps repetitively and it is all soft, barely amounting to noise. Charlotte steps over.

The librarian observes this every day, ey stops and fidgets precisely two and a half minutes after ey throws away eir coffee. She timed it once, bored, and it was exactly two minutes and thirty one seconds.

Charlotte inhales, the library air languid and stuffy. A leaf flutters down from the maple outside the window and Harmodius remains looking at the titles. She walks by and ey stays frozen and expressionless. This is the first interaction, silent and still. Harmodius pulls a book of the shelf as she passes, “Feminism in 19th Century France.” It doesn’t mean anything.

The soft click of Charlotte’s heels is quick and fast as she leaves the library, yellow card slipped carelessly into her purse. Harmodius crooks eir head, before returning to eir route, day in, day out. Ey leaves at precisely 3:42. The librarian doesn’t watch either of them go.

It is 3:31 in a public library. Harmodius is standing next to books by Chuck Palahniuk, trying to remember if he is the one who writes bluntly and almost brutally about sex. Charlotte’s sandals slap against the tile, echoing. The librarian peers up, earrings dangling, and Charlotte disappears into a stack of books.

Still standing, Harmodius settles the book “Invisible Monsters Remix” in the crook of eir arm. Ey moves slowly and smoothly and the air almost seems to part for em. Passing the new fiction, ey walks around the librarians desk once, twice.

Charlotte is there, her hair smooth in a bun. Ey stands.
Harmodius waits for Charlotte to check out her books, foot bouncing quickly and urgently. She leaves, with a mumble about bugs, and ey fumbles with eir books, fingers grasping but not holding. There is a cutting remark under eir breath and a raised eyebrow from the librarian. Harmodius walks out of the library, steps uneven. A receipt flutters down from eir bag but ey doesn’t stop.

Verdict: Palahniuk does indeed write bluntly about sex.

It is 3:41 in a public library. Harmodius is leaving, Charlotte is entering. They brush past each other, no contact, barely registering the other is there.

It is a variety of times in a public library. Harmodius is holding a comic, an encyclopedia, an anthology. Charlotte is gingerly handling a makeup manual, a Vogue magazine, or dropping a tissue distastefully. They glance at each other through bookshelves, across computers, wait for the librarian in proximity.

They don’t know each other. Harmodius doesn’t care to try, and Charlotte figures maybe she should know. Sociality has something to do with popularity after all, and Charlotte considers herself the best of the best (she’s not).

It is 3:22 in a public library. Charlotte walks up to Harmodius and he twists to the sound of her click-clack heels.

“I’m Charlotte,” she says brashly, “Who are you?” It is said with a sneer and her nose wrinkles slightly at the bridge. Harmodius pulls in a breath, long and inaudible even in the quiet room.

“Harmodius,” ey responds, short and terse.

“What kind of name is that?” Charlotte asks, pink-painted digits sparkling even in the dusty light. They curl harshly into loose fists and her face twists in a mean way, glinting lips pushed to the side in a crude approximation of neutral.

Harmodius turns away, says, “mine,” before taking choppy steps around the corner to the next bookshelf. Charlotte follows him, doglike in her perseverance and ey does not turn, nor acknowledge her existence in any way. The book in eir hands is well worn and bright red, written by George R.R. Martin. Ey wonders how she would respond if ey were to hit her. It’s far too tempting.

“I’m just wondering,” Charlotte says in a loud whisper, offended, “Is it really that bad to ask?”

A withering gaze is turned on her as  Harmodius responds (also in a whisper), “How would you feel if I implied that your name was unsuitable, amiss in every way?” It is expressed coldly, almost cruel in it’s icy tone. Charlotte does not leave but she becomes louder, full of something near irritation.

“There’s nothing wrong with asking,” she says rudely, “On that note, are you a boy or a girl? I can’t tell.” Her voice takes on a condescending tone. This person - Harmodius - disturbs her simplistic understanding of reality, black and white, pink and blue, masculine and feminine. Harmodius doesn’t fit either, grayscale and androgynous and seeming completely out of this world.

“Neither,” ey says and leaves it at that.

Charlotte bursts out with a series of “but” and “how” but Harmodius walks away, one foot in front of the other. Breathe in, breathe out, ignore the rest of the worlds ignorance. Behind em, Charlotte storms out the door without a word to the librarian, books dropped, ill-mannered, on her desk. It teeters on the one short leg from which an encyclopedia has slid out from.

Harmodius plods on through eir daily routine and that is that.

It is 2:59 in a public library. Harmodius has just entered moments ago and Charlotte is approaching the end of her visit. She scoops up her books from the librarian’s desk, no longer wobbly and walks toward Harmodius. Ey keeps going, but she stands in eir way.

“You have to be a boy or a girl,” Charlotte says definitively, hands on her hips and Harmodius stops in eir tracks and starts laughing, short and choppy.

“Then I suppose I mustn’t exist,” ey says with a crooked grin at Charlotte’s pinched expression. She straightened up, her diminutive height still shorter than Harmodius but then again, neither of them could reach the top shelf terribly well.

Reminiscent of a faceoff, the reluctant and the aggressive watched each other warily.

“You have to be!” Charlotte says petulantly, sounding for all the world like a determined toddler not getting her way, “I’ve thought about it all weekend.”

Harmodius smiled again, or maybe it never left. “I’ve considered it for years. That might give me a bit more legitimacy,” ey says, years of ill fitting clothes and backward glances always in the back of eir mind there to justify it. These are things to be kept quiet though, to be hidden in the back of a closet with bad test scores and whispers.

“That’s not possible, only girls and boys exist. Men and women. There’s a reason everything is the way it is,” Charlotte says, face flushing, angry and embarrassed, voice growing louder with every passing comment.

“And that reason would be?” asked Harmodius, tone cool and soft. Eir foot bounces up and down, green laces flying up into the air. Loosely balled fists lay at eir side and agitation shines through the fidgets.

With a stutter, Charlotte says, “It doesn’t even matter,” too loudly and the librarian looks up as a guffwaw bursts from Harmodius’s throat. Charlotte and Harmodius look at each other like fellow predators, sizing each other up.

“Quiet, please,” says the librarian loudly, her voice echoing in the cavernous room, and they both fall silent. Harmodius walks past Charlotte with the leftovers of a smile and a nod. She moves away and the door is heavy behind her. The air in the library is still and heavy but almost completely empty, and the air smells of dust. Time flows on. 

It is 3:11 in a public library. The librarian is in the back room and Charlotte and Harmodius are both there. Her shoulder is barely removed from it’s point against the heavy wooden door when she spots Harmodius across the room, right in front of books on the French Revolution. Marching over, she does not smile and ey does not look.

“I still don’t understand you,” she says in a remarkably clear voice given her red and stuffy nose, and she looks tired.

“Good thing you don’t have to to,” Harmodius responds and from Charlottes squinted eyes, it clearly wasn’t the answer she was looking for. Her intake of air is audible from between the shelves.

“I don’t understand how you are such an asshole, honestly,” she begins, and Harmodius rolls eir eyes, “Seriously, you’re not a boy or a girl, apparently, and you seem content not to tell me anything. This world is split into two hemispheres and men are North and women are South. Honestly, I don’t see why you have to make everything so complicated. You’re wrong in every single way! People just aren’t, um, non-gendered, really. This is all your fault!”

Harmodius is still, minus the fingers fumbling with a cup of coffee, still hot in eir hands. “Do you honestly think that?” ey says, slightly insulted and mostly sarcastic, “I’m like 98.5 percent sure I exist and I most certainly don’t fit your world view. I’m incredibly sorry for upsetting your delicate sensibilities. And it’s non-binary, not non-gendered. That would be agender which is something else entirely.”

“Non-binary, that’s so pretentious,” Charlotte says, rolling her eyes.

“I may be pretentious,” says Harmodius, shrugging, “But at least I’m not ignorant.” Charlotte gasps, completely serious in her horror, but the gears within her mind begin to churn.

A bit late, she shouts, “I’m not ignorant! I read the news,” and Harmodius rolls eir eyes.

“You think that’s an excuse? The news is censored. Look around. There’s a reason you think I’m incorrect in my ways. And what is it? It’s not because I am wrong,” Harmodius voice raises to the same level as Charlotte’s as the librarian returns from the storage room, looking almost as affronted as the arguing people.

“Out! Out! Both of you! This is a quiet space and you are not respecting that. Get out!” she whisper-yells and they scatter but not without parting blows, their feet slapping against the hard tile.

“You’re disgusting,” hisses Charlotte and Harmodius throws eir coffee on her, hot and sticky and she screeches. They leave in a whirlwind of anger and disagreement only to walk stiffly in opposite directions once out the door, Charlottes wet clothes clinging to her chest and stomach. Harmodius cracks eir shoulders.

They don’t bother listening to the others footsteps retreat.

It is 2:57 in a public library. Harmodius comes and goes with nothing but a dirty look from the librarian. Charlotte is nowhere to be found and the corners of eir mouth quirks up. She doesn’t come in. Harmodius leaves, nodding to the librarian once more.

This happens again, again and again.

It is 3:32 in a public library. Charlotte enters for the first time since they were exculpated by the librarian. Harmodius is there and she meanders around a bit before confronting em. Her pink skirt swishes around her hips as she walks. Harmodius does not respond as she approaches, back to her, slightly hunched.

“I may have had some misgivings,” Charlotte declares before waiting. Harmodius moves and doesn’t say a word, daring, waiting, for her to continue. She doesn’t, so ey keeps walking, step in, step out. “I’m saying I may have been wrong,” tries Charlotte several moments later and still doesn’t get a response, “Honestly, I try and apologize and you ignore me. I take it all back!”

Harmodius just plods on as she storms out of the library with a bemused look from the librarian. Later, as ey is checking out eir books, the librarian asks, “Were you two together?”

Harmodius snickers and shakes eir head slowly. That is that.

--

Several years later

It is 3:27 in a public library. Harmodius is no longer standing alone, and instead is near another person. They walk the same route together but it is filled with whispers and short giggles. The librarian smiles at them, and Charlotte walks in with a man. tall and hard looking. It is her first time in the library in years.
She walks and the man ducks into the bathroom. Harmodius meets her eyes from across the room but neither of them make any move to speak. Charlotte’s head is ducked and her hands flutter. Her make up is heavy but the glitter is gone. Harmodius watches, as the other person makes a pun and ey laughs.
As Charlotte and the man move past, he makes a comment about how “the f**s are ruining life,” and Charlotte tells him that it’s not always that way.
Harmodius mentally shrugs and rubs eir battered knuckles. Eir back is straight and there are slight lines on eir face from smiling. Times have changed, and yet nothing changed at all.

--

In myrtles veil'd will I the falchion wear,
For thus the patriot sword
Harmodius and Aristogiton bare,
When they the tyrant's bosom gored;
When in Minerva's festal rite
They closed Hipparchus' eyes in night.

Harmodius' praise, Aristogiton's name,
Shall bloom on earth with undecaying fame;
Who with the myrtle-wreathed sword
The tyrant's bosom gored,
And bade the men of Athens be
Regenerate in equality.

-The Orations of Demosthenes