Lawrence

He loved books. He’d loved them before he could read- their weight, their feel. He loved the smell of old books, the smell of new books. He opened books and stuck his nose so far in to the binding that the spine fabric would tickle his nose hairs. The readers thought he was part of the library. He liked helping the people who came looking for that one book. He would give his gracious, knowing nod, smile, and lead them where it was kept. He derived great satisfaction in leaving them to it, a dedicated valet ushering newlyweds to their boudoir. Finishing in the stacks, he parked the returns cart next to the old desk, turned, and sat down into his creaky old friend. Nothing on the desk predated Lawrence. The blotter was 20 years old, the date stamp and card catalogue were 25. The last 2 years, trustees had been quietly asking him to step down. He predated them too.

“How can I leave?” He asked himself.

“Who would take care of the books?”

He scratched the hair on his knuckles, put his reading glasses on, and opened his latest treasure. The recent years were leaving him more and more time at the desk for reading. Less and less people were coming in to the library. Most walked right past him to the 2^nd floor computer lab. They didn’t even see the books. But Lawrence saw them. He saw all of them. He knew the bent over pages, which ones the city college majors needed in March, the ones with ripped bindings and the ones with dirty smudged doodles. He knew the readers too. He knew which ones returned late and which books wouldn’t come home at all. The neon lights bobbed angel reflections off the gold leaf of the older, rare, books across from him. At least He saw the reflections. Swaying across the blotter in the late fall afternoons, he gratefully watched the refracted angels guarding his treasures, dabbing at the spittle gathering in the corner of his mouth before fumbling for the back pocket of his trousers, searching for the kerchief’s home, unwilling to take his eyes from the autumn light sentries. The rare hardbacks stood erect before him. He had started on the top left, and, after 30 years, was finally on the last row. When the last delicacy had been consumed, it would be time. He sometimes felt like an uphill steam engine- getting up the track, almost stopping before the creaky piston would get over the wheel just one more time. He’d felt a lot of one more times at his desk. He thought that might be what it was, the one more times were each its own creaky screaming birth of the accepted challenge in each turn on the uphill rail. But he was on the last row now. He might finish by the next Fall gold leaf sway.

Sighing, Lawrence unscrewed the dented top of his thermos and poured a new cup of coffee into the mug. In the same deliberate motion, he pulled a flask from his bottom right drawer, and poured a dram into the coffee. Just a nip after the stacks. His eyebrow slowly cracked as the joy of when he first saw it came back to him. Slowly turning the pages, he picks up the cup and, moving it slowly to his mouth, blowing on it before it reaches him, he is seized by a swelling pain, overtaking him like a vicious outgoing tide. The coffee falls to the desk, ruining his treasure with the thick milky drink. And that’s how Lawrence died, with his autumn light angel sentries, and his nose in a book, on the last row.