Nata Kay - The Choice Era. Part 1

Finishing with his mental irony, Harry kept walking along the house. Nelson didn’t know this district. No one of his acquaintances lived here, there were no nice restaurants, shops, cinemas and other places for pleasant leisure. They say, the beer was good in local pubs, but their appearance scared away people who wanted to taste a good drink. In the modern world the interior influenced on the taste buds and the areas of the brain responsible for receiving pleasure as much as food and drink itself.

Harry walked looking around. Now he was in no hurry. Sometimes he was starting to feel in another city or even in another time. He ignored taverns with dirty windows and declining signboards. He didn’t like their appearance. If the owners didn’t care about the cleanliness and tidiness of the entrance, then there could be no guarantee of compliance with sanitary and hygienic standards.

Pub, pub, pub… Harry walked along the street and didn’t sincerely understand how all these restaurants survived in a place where there were almost no pedestrians and cars. As if to refute his thoughts an old and beaten up car passed by, and it was as shabby as everything on this street.

Pub, another one with a more intricate signboard. How many were there? And again a pub, a pub, a library.

A library?

Seriously? A library?

Harry stopped suddenly. The library looked the same as the surrounding pubs. Only the windows shades were tightly shut.

Library, big deal… That could be a name of one of the pubs. Quite an original one, by the way, and such originality could easily attract visitors. However, so far there were no crowds eager to spend time here. Harry kept walking, but after ten meters he stopped and turned back.

He was just standing here for a few seconds, staring thoughtfully at the signboard, and then looked around the street on all sides. The street still seemed deserted and forgotten. Harry heard hum and voices from a pub, but the sounds were like a low-quality television recording in the background of the whole silence. Perhaps the voices were even a figment of Harry’s imagination, or they were heard from the netherworld that still was a question to scientists.

Harry quickly went back not to change his mind, walked to the threshold of the library, hesitated a little, and put his hand on a large doorknob. Before he opened the door, he took one last look at the surrounding reality. It was the same.

Harry himself would really like also to stay the same or at least feel confident in his own decisions. So far, all he felt was some goose bumps on his arms.

The door looked massive and crooked.

«I wish it didn’t open», Harry thought, and tried the handle. The door opened with a squeak, but easily. Harry even wondered how simple it was to pass through this obstacle.

There was nothing behind the door besides a shabby wooden floor, bare gray walls, and a dim bulb hanging alone in a light dusty lampshade. The room was shaped like an elongated rectangle.

A hallway. Harry had no other option.

He carefully closed the door behind him and passed forward along this strange dark corridor. Surely, it had nothing to do with a pub. Weird, almost tangible silence was literally vanishing in the air.

Harry saw another source of light around the left bend. Probably another lampshade. And Nelson went to the light like a moth. Harry wondered if there was at least one living person in the library, or if this relic of the past was just abandoned and uninhabited.

After the first step Harry realized that the floor not only looked old, but it was really very old. Its boards were squeaking, and Harry had to be careful and walk slowly. Any odd sounds were confusing.

The most ordinary writing desk appeared around the corner on which there was a high uneven pile of countless papers. An old-fashioned desk lamp decorated a table corner. According to the price list of a furniture store, it could be counted as a night lamp.

Near the wall Harry could see an antique wooden chest of drawers. Its surface was also marked by a pile of folders and papers.

A man was sitting at the table. He was not young, although he was probably far from the status of an old man. The man was wearing a worn knitted sweater with a pattern erased by time and washing. His stubble clearly showed that the stranger hadn’t shaved for days, although this fact hardly bothered him. As well as the fact that he was in such an unpopular place as a library.

The man was reading. A book. A real one. Harry could see that the man’s eyes were moving from line to line.

When Harry saw the glasses, he was amazed. People had long ceased to wear glasses to improve their eyesight. Eye surgeries had dealt with most diseases. And if the operations didn’t work, there were contact lenses.

Glasses in modern world served only as sunlight protection or an accessory, but the man in the library didn’t appear to care about his style. This meant his glasses helped him see better, and he had probably chosen glasses deliberately.

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