Ralph said, “It’s how the library has always worked. People aren’t there to get the books you want them to read.”

“What I wonder,” Terry Gallagher said, “is if there’s a movie theater somewhere that plays pictures that haven’t come out yet. Or if there’s a cable channel that plays TV shows that haven’t yet been released. For people who need to know. Maybe there is. Maybe the universe is kinder than we thought.”

I said, “Mr. Gallagher, I see a lot of you. You’re one of my steadiest customers. You aren’t scared that one of these days you’ll climb up there and I’ll offer you something that hasn’t come out yet?”

“I’m counting on it,” Gallagher said. “If that ever happens, I’ll know I have one good read left and to get my affairs in order.” He seemed quite calm at the thought.

Ralph dealt a fresh hand. “And what book from the future are you hoping to read, Mr. Gallagher?”

Gallagher lifted his chin and stared at the ceiling for a moment.

“The Art of the Presidency: How I Won My Third Term by Donald J. Trump,” he announced.

“That ever happens,” Hayes said, “it’ll prove the universe don’t actually give a fuck.”

THE SECOND WEEK IN JANUARY, Lynn Dolan paid me another visit.

She was through the door and across the library car before I had time to stand up. The sight of her gave me a nasty turn. She had lost ten pounds, and her neck and brow glowed with an oily film of sweat. I could feel the heat coming off her, even with the desk between us. I could smell blood, too, a faint rankness clinging to her woolen coat.

“I want the rest,” she said. “I need the rest. Please. My son’s books.”

The door creaked slowly shut behind her. In my time it was raining, a dismal, cold, January drizzle, turning the snow to slush, dirt to mud, and parking lots to shallow swimming pools. But for an instant I glimpsed big fat flakes of falling snow outside, and a black late-1950s car rolling by out on the street, and I had a wild moment of wondering if I could push by her and escape into the past.

But she was leaning over me, feverish and weak, her pupils very small and her lips dry and cracked. I came around the desk and touched her arm.

“Sit,” I said. “Please sit.”

She tottered to my chair and eased herself down.

“Should you be out of bed?” I asked.

She wiped one hand over her damp cheek, then hugged herself. “I’m fine.”

“The hell you are.”