53: An Army of Borrowers.

The Borrowers aren't just Borrowers. They are individuals who require a User Centred Service. They are a Community that requires Engaging. They are Customers who desire Full and Frank Consultation on Service Development and Delivery. They have Cultural Needs. They have Information Requirements that need to be addressed. They have Learning and Literacy Challenges, or present Behavioural Obstacles to Patron Centred Service.

Sometimes Borrower who Leaves Pictures Torn Out Of Porn Magazines Inside The Children's Books and Borrower Who Rips Out The Barcodes and Then Denies It and Borrower Who Complains about Blasphemous Books and Borrower Who Asks for The Karma Sutra Every Single Pigging Day And Never Pigging Borrows It, and Borrower Who Winks For No Reason, and Borrower who Complains about Mobile Phone Noise Pollution, and Borrower Who Leaves His Books on the Newspaper Table then Gets Angry When They Are Still on His Ticket, and Borrower Who Brings Quality Street In At Christmas and Borrower who Cries, Silently, in the Science Fiction Section, come together and become something more than Borrowers.

Sometimes, they plan things. Sometimes Petitions, sometimes letters to The Council, and sometimes, much worse things.

The Borrowers who have managed to get up in the lift from the Basement Area walk towards the queue. But they keep on walking. They walk through the library, past the shining Rubber Plants and the Poster Paint on the carpet, and into The Dead Zone.

They circle the lump on the carpet. They kneel and pat Complaining Borrower gently. They make little growling noises, groans and confused whimpers.

When it becomes clear Complaining Borrower is not going to wake up, they gather together to mutter and plan.

They have come together. They are an Army of Borrowers now. They are not planning a petition.

They are planning a War.