Jonathan walked along the street in his hometown. He was on his way to the post office to pick up a package. It was a hot summer day and he already missed the air conditioning of his car. Not a lot of people were outside, most of them avoided leaving the cool indoors.
Summer was not Jonathan’s favorite season.
He passed some shops and restaurants that had always been there so he didn’t pay them much attention until suddenly something caught his eye.
He slowed down to take a look and he was confused. Until just a couple of days ago there used to be a barber shop but it wasn’t there anymore. Instead the sign now said “Fred’s antique books”. Jonathan go curious. He loved books and sometimes browsed books for hours so this looked very interesting. From what he could see through the window the store was full of books, old and new. He didn’t really have the time but he still wanted to check it out.
When he entered the store the first thing he noticed was the cook air. What a relief.
The store itself was rather dark and the smell of old books was in the air. He liked that.
He looked around and saw 3 other customers and a tall, skinny man with gray hair and glasses at the check out desk. Everything looked like it had been there for years but that wasn’t possible. Jonathan had a strange feeling, something wasn’t right.
He continued to look around and walked between the bookshelves. The titles of some of the books were pretty obscure. “How the frogs conquered the moon”, “The secret life of willow trees”. He had never heard of the titles or the authors before but that didn’t really have to mean anything. Nobody knew every title.
He reached the back wall of the store and saw an old astronomy book. He took it in his hands. It wasn’t antique, but few decades old. Some of the information would be outdated but it was interesting nonetheless. The dust jacket looked worn out and someone had made some notes inside the book. At first it didn’t look like much but Jonathan noticed that the notes didn’t make any sense and had nothing to do with astronomy.
“Hello.” The dark voice startled him and he looked up to see the man from the check out. Maybe he was the owner, Fred.
“Uhm, hello.”, Jonathan replied but he didn’t really know what to say. The man looked him right into the eyes which made him a little uncomfortable. The man’s eye were dark and he looked old but he couldn’t really tell how old he could be. His glasses looked almost antique. He was wearing a white shirt with short sleeves and dark green tie. On the back of his left hand was a small tattoo, Jonathan couldn’t quite make out what it was. It looked like some kind of animal.
Fred reach for the book in Jonathan’s hand and took it. It was the tattoo of an elephant, he could see it now.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Jonathan.”…
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