“The ending seemed a bit abrupt to me,” said the little boy, as he reached to place the old volume on the lady’s desk.
“Most of them are.” She eyed the youth with a wisened glint in her eye. “Very few end the way you want them to.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, and paced over to the front of the desk.
“It’s not to say that there weren’t wonderful moments though. I adored the conversations between Lewis and Cathy. And those five months at the radio station…”
The boy looked up to see the librarian standing, holding the leather bound book in both her hands, eyes pressed closed. When they flickered open, she lightly shook her head, and headed off towards a line of bookshelves.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as the boy trotted behind her. “I simply forgot where Lewis Andrew Halvard XXVII was shelved for a moment. And you are abssolutely right.” A beaming smile was flashed towards the youth. “The relationship between Cathy and Lewis is quite unususal, especially when seen from both sides. Would you be interested in borrowing Catherine next?”
The boy broke his step for a moment, and cocked his head to one side. In another moment, he had caught up to the librarian again.
“I think not” said he. “Living those lives side by side would give me such de-ja vu. And besides,” here a corner of the boy’s mouth lifted as he raised an eyebrow, “I already know the ending. I saw, or rather, Lewis saw Cathy die on the hospital bed. One week before their thirty-second anniversary, too.”
The librarian stopped at the middle of one of the shelves. Her finger ran down the spines of volumes akin to the one she held in her right hand.
“It’s not important that you would know the ending. She wouldn’t. Ah! here we are.”
Here she gingerly parted two leather bindings, and, arousing a puff of dust, slid the book snugly in between them.
“Yes, I know. But still, I don’t want to experience Cathy quite yet. I am in the mood for something a bit more racy.”
The librarian’s eyes swung down towards the small child; her forehead rippled.
“Don’t give me that look.” The boy turned to face the nigh infinite rows of bookshelves, “As if I were too young. You forget, I have thirty-seven lifetimes under my belt.”
“You can hardly count Bradford William Acroman XIV’s three years as a lifetime.”
“Fine, thirty-six then. Though Bradford did experience a great many things before the train accident.”