Meg stands halfway up the rolling ladder along the side wall shelves. Her mouth cinches at one corner as she grabs a paperback from a stack on the rung at her waist level.“How much longer?” she asks the book, which, as expected, offers no answer. She angles its slick cover that carries a lurid drawing in black…

The Frayed Spine’s staff room, wedged sideways across from the counter, looks as if it were put together to be a functional shoebox at best. With it having just about enough space, it can contain three people tops, and only if they arrive in a chipper mood. Maz steps inside. In an attempt to avoid…

Ari approaches a low maple shelf by a rainbow bead curtain for a door. His latex gloves, stained green and yellow, reach up to where his rolled sleeves begin. In his left hand, he carries a squat jar twice the size of his palm and places it on the shelf. The dark green liquid inside,…

The shop, at least the mood inside, rearranges itself around the name. Maz’s eyes snap away from Mr. H and find the counter as she takes half a step backwards.Mr. H? If that’s the initial from the forms… then it’s the boss. You expected him to be older or… no, and greyer. He might as…

As the Inferno customer disappears between the aisles, Meg turns her attention to Maz and Eli. Maz’s eyes lock onto her clipboard. Eli places the donations box on the floor nearer the shelves across Maz. Meg drums her fingers on the hardback in her hand, three short taps of a countdown before giving the air…

The bell’s chime carries on travelling when it changes. It reaches an end at last. For an ear-piercing split second, it behaves as if it understands what an echo might mean. The sound comes back with a different kick, clearer and harder than their ears expect. The warped wood pretends to have swapped itself for…

As Eli steps in, the thick glazed pane of the entrance judders in its frame, claiming frailty despite his gentle push on the already ajar door. When no return chime sounds from the bell above, he shoots a look at it over his shoulder.That bell. I don’t even remember the last time it worked properly.…

Don’t think about Eli. Just count. Stack, slot, move. Maz adds a tattered book onto a stack. Ahead, as The Frayed Spine, the bookshop entrance swings inwards, and with it, the rusted brass bell above the door bobs as if trying to ring. It musters only a single note of a one-way whimper. Maz’s ears…