Flash! Fiction by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

6

The Bookshelf

Cathedral bell door chimes send my heart into a sympathetic panic.

My wife and I have been invited for dinner at her partner’s mansion.

I’ve never met him or his wife before and don’t usually care for nou-veau-riche business-types, so I don’t expect much. Not much, that is, except for validation. And that just met me at the door.

Our hosts greet us at the door, invite us in, and then escort us through the great hall to the study where we have drinks and the customary ‘get-to-know-you’ small talk for the benefit of the strangers—the hostess and me.

After 15 or 20 minutes of this, I sense restlessness, and I assure everyone that I’ll be fine—that I’ll just have a look around the library.

The partners move towards the terrace with their drinks to go over their pitch for their presentation in Vancouver on Monday. The hostess excuses herself to the kitchen to finish preparing the meal.

The library had caught my eye as we were led through the hall.

Two arched, stained-glass doors open to the right off the foyer, and since one was ajar, I glimpsed an intriguing floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Now I could lose myself among books, lose track of time, until dinner and then time to go home. Perfect

What's on the bookshelf? Are they bestsellers, mysteries, history, religious, scholarly, cloth-bound, paperback, or just decorative spines? Is the bookshelf used often, or have layers of dust collected on the books and underneath the books? Are there secret hiding places in the bookshelf for money, jewellery, love letters, wills, a handgun?