I was nose deep in Jack Keroac’s “Book of Blues,” when I heard the scraping bang. I snapped my head up, as did every other person in the library, to see clouds of dark smoke clawing at the window.

Eyes were widened and met one another with the same question strewn across their faces: what the fuck? I looked to the librarian’s desk just as she was hanging up the phone receiver.

“Two cars crashed into the building at 90mph,” she whispered, still being respectful of the fact she was in a library.