Nepenthe

The next Saturday had finally arrived.
Slowly, but surely.

My word rested on the tip of my tongue; danced on the ends of my fingers.
However, I could not remember where I heard it from.

I entered the library, instantly calling out Christopher’s name.

No response.

I walked toward the east end of the building – he wasn’t asleep against the shelf this time.

He hasn’t shown up yet?

I frowned slightly, walking back two shelves to grab the book that I was currently reading – a slightly worn out paperback version of Of Mice and Men. I returned to my place on the ground and continued reading.

Twenty minutes have passed before there was the sound of movement and a familiar raspy cough.

“I know I am late, and I apologize, Victor…”
He sat down next to me, pulling out his handkerchief and coughing into it.

I tensed up, remembering the red that I saw last week.

“Shall we start?”
“Tsundoku. Noun. The constant act of buying books, but never reading them; letting books pile up unread.”

A small smile from him – I smiled as his face grew bright again.

“You didn’t need to read the definition?”
“It described my sister perfectly. There’s no way I would forget a definition like that.”

“Your sister?”
“She had a library of unread books in her room, yet she would always buy another that caught her attention. She would always say that she would get to them when she could…”

I frowned.

“Mom locked her room and hid the key. No one can read those books now. Who knows how much dust those things had collected.”

A moment of silence.

“Caraphernilia. Noun. A broken-heart disease whenever someone leaves you but leaves all their things behind. I feel that your mother was afraid to experience that…I don’t blame her either.”

He placed his hand onto his chest, where his heart would be.

“It’s a horrible feeling. It really is. Yet, I still walk into this building without a second thought.”
He looks up at me, tears in his eyes.

“Christopher…?”

It was easy to tell – he was trying not to cry in front of me.

“It’s all right…”
I placed a hand onto his cheek.

“There’s no need to hide your emotions.”

His eyes looked away from me; the tears began to fall.

And it can only get worse if he stays in here right now.

“Let’s go to the rooftop, okay? We can watch the clouds. Just like last week?”
“…Fine.”

♠ | ♠ | ♠

“I’m sorry about earlier.”
“No need to apologize.”

We lie on the rooftop – it was hard to tell different shapes from the clouds since they covered up most of sky today, so we decided to just talk.

“It’s been eleven years now. I shouldn’t be crying. I should’ve moved on by now.”

He sighed.

“My father used to own this library. It held many great memories. Now that he’s gone, he’s left all of the books. He left all of the children’s drawings and the chessboard and the rolls of yarn that would be used by the elderly women on Sundays. He left one whole building that’s slowly wasting away as time continues to pass.”

He runs a hand through his hair.

“I thought that if I came back, I would be fine. I thought that I would be able to handle it.”

A moment of silence.

“At least you take some of the pain away, Victor.”

He lets out a small laugh.

“Maybe instead talking about the past, we should get to know more about each other? Don’t you agree?”
I nodded in agreement, eager to listen.

I met him in an abandoned library.

Christopher Lewis. A literature professor who is eight years my senior.

He shares my passion for reading and understanding the various words on every page we read.
He enjoys cloud-watching and writing down words that catch his attention and their definitions into his journal.

He likes the color Burgundy.

He is dying from Tuberculosis.