The Scent of Old Books
folder
Romance › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
1
Views:
1,488
Reviews:
2
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Romance › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
1
Views:
1,488
Reviews:
2
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction, and any characters resembling the living, the dead, the undead, or zombies is purely coincidental and probably creepy. I, as author, claim exclusive rights to this story. No duplication is acc
The Scent of Old Books
Alistair Booth was accustomed to torment. As a scholar living in times of such travesties as video games and reality television, it was a daily occurrence. And yet, he thought to himself as he erased a hole through the thirty-second revision of the third word he’d written for his American Government essay, there was nothing worse than this, the most superfluous of college classes.
Especially considering the community college in which he was currently enrolled.
Pondering of what use the Philadelphia Convention’s intricacies could ever be to him, Alistair seized the raw hole in his paper as an excuse to do something more entertaining. Pulling himself over to the bed which was his closet, he began matching socks.
Like most young, aspiring intellectuals living in small towns, Alistair was plagued by two things: a lack of culture, and Starbucks. The first was inescapable, and was often muted with a good book and copious amounts of liquor. The second was the only viable job for a rural someone who couldn’t shoot and didn’t own a four-wheeler.
In fact, there were only three good things about Greensley, where Alistair had lived for all twenty-eight of his years on earth. First, life was relatively cheap. Second, there was no shortage of liquor stores. And third, there was Mongomery’s.
Alistair’s grandmother, Irene Donahue, had once claimed to have met the original Morrie Montgomery, despite chronologically being two when the man had died. The Montgomerys were one of the original families in Greensley, and there had been a Morrie Montgomery for as long as anyone or their grandmother cared to remember. And with the Morrie Mongomerys, came Montgomery’s, one of the greatest bookstores ever known to man.
There were not words enough in all the books in the world to describe a place like Montgomery’s.
Alistair glanced at the grey sock in his left hand, the brown sock in his right hand, and the clock on his bedside table. 5:19. He bundled the two socks together, tossed the mountain of paired socks into his closet and grabbed his wallet.
If he didn’t get some caffeine into his body, he was going to choke himself with a pair of socks.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Alistair tipped his coffee cup up and drained the cooling remnants just in time to toss the empty cup in the garbage can outside Montgomery’s. The front door opened under his touch with an affectionate sigh of recognition, and a familiar musky odor rushed to greet him like an old friend.
Inside, behind an aged counter and hiding behind poor lighting, Liza Montgomery was fiddling with the antique cash register, brows furrowed in concentration under a red bandana.
Alistair nodded politely at her, and followed a well-known path down a narrow aisle lined with rows and rows of books. Alistair had once asked Logan Montgomery, Liza’s brother, and the son of the last Morrie Montgomery, just how many books were on the shelves. Logan said they’d stopped estimating after a million in 1967.
And yet somehow, though there was no rhyme or reason in the shelving, and there was no way of telling what books would be where, Alistair found more comfort in Montgomery’s than he did anywhere else. Every book had its own unique smell, all mixing together to form an intoxicating blend of age and knowledge. There was something faintly romantic about the store, in a very classic way. It appealed to Alistair in a way he couldn’t quite name, but he welcomed it.
Coming to a stop in front of a shadowy niche under a set of stairs, something caught Alistair’s eye. Perched haphazardously atop a stack of very dusty moldy grey books was a thin book, a deep brown with brilliant gold embossing that stood out amidst all the grime around it.
Alistair stared at the book for a long time. He’d seen the dusty stack of books more times than he could count. It was the classics section, with some of the oldest books in the store, and Alistair had been certain that he was the only one who knew they existed.
Curiosity got the better of him, and he saw his own hand, long-fingered and slightly pale, reaching out to grasp the book. The first page, written with a sort of mannish intellectual confidence, though in a sloping, feminine hand, completely changed his life:
A Literary Guide To Life, Love, And Knowledge, 1814-Present.
Especially considering the community college in which he was currently enrolled.
Pondering of what use the Philadelphia Convention’s intricacies could ever be to him, Alistair seized the raw hole in his paper as an excuse to do something more entertaining. Pulling himself over to the bed which was his closet, he began matching socks.
Like most young, aspiring intellectuals living in small towns, Alistair was plagued by two things: a lack of culture, and Starbucks. The first was inescapable, and was often muted with a good book and copious amounts of liquor. The second was the only viable job for a rural someone who couldn’t shoot and didn’t own a four-wheeler.
In fact, there were only three good things about Greensley, where Alistair had lived for all twenty-eight of his years on earth. First, life was relatively cheap. Second, there was no shortage of liquor stores. And third, there was Mongomery’s.
Alistair’s grandmother, Irene Donahue, had once claimed to have met the original Morrie Montgomery, despite chronologically being two when the man had died. The Montgomerys were one of the original families in Greensley, and there had been a Morrie Montgomery for as long as anyone or their grandmother cared to remember. And with the Morrie Mongomerys, came Montgomery’s, one of the greatest bookstores ever known to man.
There were not words enough in all the books in the world to describe a place like Montgomery’s.
Alistair glanced at the grey sock in his left hand, the brown sock in his right hand, and the clock on his bedside table. 5:19. He bundled the two socks together, tossed the mountain of paired socks into his closet and grabbed his wallet.
If he didn’t get some caffeine into his body, he was going to choke himself with a pair of socks.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Alistair tipped his coffee cup up and drained the cooling remnants just in time to toss the empty cup in the garbage can outside Montgomery’s. The front door opened under his touch with an affectionate sigh of recognition, and a familiar musky odor rushed to greet him like an old friend.
Inside, behind an aged counter and hiding behind poor lighting, Liza Montgomery was fiddling with the antique cash register, brows furrowed in concentration under a red bandana.
Alistair nodded politely at her, and followed a well-known path down a narrow aisle lined with rows and rows of books. Alistair had once asked Logan Montgomery, Liza’s brother, and the son of the last Morrie Montgomery, just how many books were on the shelves. Logan said they’d stopped estimating after a million in 1967.
And yet somehow, though there was no rhyme or reason in the shelving, and there was no way of telling what books would be where, Alistair found more comfort in Montgomery’s than he did anywhere else. Every book had its own unique smell, all mixing together to form an intoxicating blend of age and knowledge. There was something faintly romantic about the store, in a very classic way. It appealed to Alistair in a way he couldn’t quite name, but he welcomed it.
Coming to a stop in front of a shadowy niche under a set of stairs, something caught Alistair’s eye. Perched haphazardously atop a stack of very dusty moldy grey books was a thin book, a deep brown with brilliant gold embossing that stood out amidst all the grime around it.
Alistair stared at the book for a long time. He’d seen the dusty stack of books more times than he could count. It was the classics section, with some of the oldest books in the store, and Alistair had been certain that he was the only one who knew they existed.
Curiosity got the better of him, and he saw his own hand, long-fingered and slightly pale, reaching out to grasp the book. The first page, written with a sort of mannish intellectual confidence, though in a sloping, feminine hand, completely changed his life:
A Literary Guide To Life, Love, And Knowledge, 1814-Present.