Missed yesterday’s? Find it here:
Special thanks to The Hearthlight Chronicles’ creator, Henrique de Aguiar, for allowing me to use his game like this. You can find him on Bluesky, X, or Itch, or better yet, grab The Hearthlight Chronicles - it’s only $3.
Today’s Prompt: “You find a cozy nook in a local coffee shop. What does this space feel like?”
Today’s music: If You Think About It, by Jasalsae. 🎧 Listen on Soundcloud.
A Cozy Space
If you asked me how I came to be at the bookstore, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. My mind conjured up all manner of paths—I’d walked, of course, and probably just after buying the coffee I still held. But I found myself on the footpath outside without knowing the precise steps that had led me here. It felt ordained, a prophecy of enticement that I was destined to undertake.
The wooden sign above the lintel, much faded and repainted, proclaimed it Hollis’s. So, the carriage driver doubled as a bookish boss. Nice.
I pushed the door wide, an old copper bell above the frame dinging as I entered. It smelled good, of old books and time well wasted, of stories told and villains vanquished, heroes lining every shelf just calling for you to meet them. Better yet, there was a beautifully restored old coffee press, a handle inviting a skilled operator to extract the perfect espresso. The press sat on the counter next to an old register that looked like time had left it behind when the 1840’s packed up and left. Behind both: Hollis.
He didn’t look up at first, his finger marking a page of his book, lips moving soundlessly as he read along. His finger tapped twice, held firm, and he looked up. “It’s always the old stories that are the best.”
“Sure,” I said, not sure what I was agreeing to. “I didn’t know you owned a bookstore.”
“I don’t.” He tapped his finger again. “More like, the cat owns me, and the store came with the cat.”
“Cat?” I looked around. There was no cat.
“I need a favour.” Hollis didn’t say it like it was a matter of life and death. “Can you mind the shop?”
“I don’t know the first thing about selling books,” I admitted. “I’d love to learn.”
“The good news is, there’s no selling required.” He leaned forward. “It’s more of an honesty system. People take the stories they need, and bring back ones that have helped them, so others can benefit.”
“A library?” I hazarded.
“No,” he said. “Don’t let the cat out.”
I turned around, still finding no cat, and when I faced the counter again, Hollis was gone, morning mist evaporated under dawn’s strike. I ambled behind the counter to see what he’d been looking at. Two documents sat side-by-side. The left was a train timetable, which suggested he was taking the carriage to pick someone up. The right was a set of instructions on how the coffee machine worked. It started with, Boil water.
Well, then. If that’s what being a bookseller was about, I was a master already.
Toward the front of the bookstore was a nook, featuring:
An overstuffed chair.
A side table, on which sat a brass-stemmed lamp.
A cat.
The cat sat on a mat, which felt like plagiarism to even think. It was a black and white unit, with jade green eyes, and it watched me as if I was just the kind of imbecile who didn’t know where to put his feet when a cat was on a mat. I took my freshly made coffee, edging around the cat, and sat on the chair. It welcomed me, the cushions easing back with me, not a mote of dust puffing as I leaned into it. Clearly it was well used, either by the cat or visitors to Hollis’s not-a-library.
After I settled, the cat stood from its previous loaf configuration, and levitated onto my lap. Then it walked to the side table, bunted the lamp (which I saved from going on the ground), finned around like a shark, then hopped on a shelf behind the chair. I craned. The cat stopped by a small pile of cat-sized tins. There was a small tin opener there, too. I looked at the cat. The cat looked at me, then at the tins.
“Okay,” I agreed. I swivelled, retrieved a tin and the opener, and got the cat back for free as it finned onto my lap. Tail in my nose, then mouth, I finally managed to open the tin around the cat, and put the tuna on the ground. The cat jumped down and started on elevenses while I leaned back. I turned back to the shelf, because the tins were beside—of course—books.
I pulled one out. It was a much-read ancient book, the binding fraying a little. The title was hard to make out, faded as it was, so I opened it. I was holding what appeared to be an original edition of The Diary of a Provincial Lady. Delafield released it in 1930; it wasn’t really my speed, but I’d heard it was Bridget Jones meets Downton Abbey. I put it on the side table, and retrieved the book’s neighbour from the shelf. Similarly ancient, the yellow cover proclaimed it Beeton’s Christmas Annual, with A Study in Scarlet inside. Why was that name familiar?
I almost dropped the book when it hit me. This was an original printing of Holmes and Watson’s first outing. The volume I held was over a hundred years old. What had Hollis said? Something about old stories being the best? Well, he wasn’t messing around, was he?
I tapped the Annual, thinking. I’d never actually read a Sherlock Holmes story. No time like the present, right?
The cat levitated back on my lap, sealing my fate. I couldn’t leave now. I leaned back, sipped coffee, opened the page, and learned where Holmes and Watson got their big break.
Roll result? A cup of coffee, a cat who absolutely read Austen, and two literary legends waiting patiently on the shelf.
XP gained: One espresso, one well-read cat (Austen, obviously), and the origin of Holmes and Watson.
Avoid the ennui of life by…
Continue your journey with Day 5:
Share this post