iExile — Literature that doesn’t behave

Radiator Reading

Dale Scherfling · Creative Nonfiction · June 2026

Radiator Reading Word Count 672 I sat in the little red-bricked library by the train tracks in Vermilion, Ohio, listening to the steam pipes in the radiator and watching engine smoke from the yards through an almost-frosted-over window while others did the sledding and skating down the hill. Through the glass I could make out their shapes — small dark figures dropping fast toward the frozen creek — but the sound of them never quite reached me. I leaned back, my feet toasting on the radiator, and continued reading. The room smelled of old bindings and radiator dust and something else, some permanent library smell that meant no one would bother you. Mrs. Hennessey, the librarian, had long since stopped checking on me. A train groaned through the yards outside, the whole building trembling faintly, and I barely looked up. I was elsewhere, in South San Francisco, chasing Oyster Pirates…