Flash Fiction: The Bookseller Part I

Like I posted in my other post, sometimes, writing within my universe is a fun distraction that still feels productive; right now, I'm facing another big rewrite, so this is my attempt at productive procrastination.

There was one bookstore in the southern quarter of Efbridge, and it was owned by a stubborn old man who walked every day to the northern ports with a rickety old wheelbarrow to fight with the harbormaster about his crates of books. The only people who sold books lived in the northern port of the city, at the base of Efbridge castle, where aristocrats could thumb volumes and ancient tomes without much interest, but lined their walls with books for the sake of feigned intelligence.

But Abas despised those people; all those lovely, leatherbound, gilded stories gathered dust on the shelf, without anyone to read them over and over again, late into the night and past the morning. He found it despicable that people could hoard such magical things, and yet, not care about the wisdom inside.

Abas strolled over the cracked cobblestones one summer morning, pushing his cart up a sidestreet and over to the port gates. He hummed quietly enough that the reverberations of the cart drowned out the noise, so the humming was just for him. Something to do on the long journey he took every morning.

A boy moved out from behind a wall and sidled up next to Abas, "Penny to push your cart, sir."

"No thank you, young man. Don't you have someplace to be?" Abas didn't know much about children, never having one of his own, but he imagined there must be a place for such a creature. Home, perhaps? Reading, or learning to read? Abas pondered, pushing the wooden wheelbarrow up the ramp and towards the harbor.

"That cart looks mighty heavy, sir, I can take a turn to get you up the hill, I won't even charge you this time."

Abas laughed, though it sounded more like a grunt, "No thank you, you wouldn't stop a farmer from his work in the fields or entice a guard to put down his sword so you could take a turn."

"Is your job to push this wheelbarrow?" asked the boy, "Sounds rather boring."

Abas sighed, "No, child, my job is to bring back books to my shop from the harbor."

"Books?" The boy made a face, "That is more boring than pushing around your wheelbarrow."

Abas paused, "Do you not like books?"

"Never learned to read," the boy said as he skipped alongside Abas, "Plus you can't eat books."

"Eat books?" Abas gasped, "Why on earth would you want to eat books?"

The boy paused, his face falling a bit. Abas looked on with confusion.

"I work for pennies so I can buy food, sir, for my family."

"So young! Where are your parents?"

"Dead, sir."

"Dead!" Abas exclaimed. They walked quietly for a moment, before stopping along a small bridge that connected two towers of the harbor. They glanced over the parapet, Abas wondering which ship held his books.

"I want to get on one of those ships one day, sail to the other continent, and never look back. Don't you?"

Abas glanced down at the dirty face: sad eyes, matted hair, and cracked lips. He looked away.

"No, boy, I'd never want to leave here. I'm trying to figure out which ship has my books."

"Oh," the boy said, "You really like your books, don't you?"

"They're my life," Abas admitted, "My whole life."

"Sounds lonely," the boy said, "Too lonely for me." And just like that, the boy turned and skipped down the ramp and into the harbor, pausing only for a moment to let Abas catch up.