Baritarabi

A shadow approached the young girl as she neared the entrance. "Do you know what baritarabi means?" asked the amorphously feminine blur at the periphery of her vision. The girl shook her head and turned back, down a corridor. She stopped in front of a single wooden door with a vertical strip of glass to the left to see into the room and its occupants. The girl knocked once, then turned the handle. A portly woman with a head of silver curls sat at the desk an arm's length from the doorway. "May I borrow a dictionary?" the girl inquired of the English teacher whose gaze landed on her immediately when the door opened. The woman demurred, "We can't lend any." Brows drawn, the girl pressed, "I just need to look up the word 'baritarabi', can you tell me what it means?" The lady turned to the monitor on her desk and tapped a few times on her keyboard. After a pause, she read out, "Baritarabi is to acquire power in order to further …" the words flowed into the girl's head as grains of sand through spread fingers, and slipping away just as quickly. The young girl thanked the woman, closed the door and shortly found herself again outside the pair of metal and glass doors to the library. The shadow came forward once more and was about to speak, but their attention was caught by someone appearing behind the girl. The latter seized upon the momentary distraction and went in. At the reference desk, the girl repeated her request for a dictionary. The bemused assistant behind the counter turned left and right to peer at the magazine racks and a low shelf behind him, trying to locate one. Undeterred, the young girl stepped up to a book cart awaiting at one end of the semi-circular desk. She selected a short, thick tome from the top rack and flipped through its pages. When she left, she remembered she knew, and knew she forgot.