Passing Ships

A short story

May 01, 2023

“What is it you do?” she had asked.

An innocent enough inquiry but, for him, one fraught with complexities he preferred to keep hidden. She had looked at him, a little too curiously if the truth be told. He felt the seemingly gentle question pick at the threads of the tightly-woven cloak of invisibility he wrapped tightly around himself. The pause echoed back at him, louder than any sound should echo in the library that had become his retreat. It was not as if he was unaware of her inquisitiveness. He had watched, safe in his eyrie deep in the literature section, as she spent hours browsing. Her nature unfolded amidst the books she piled on the table she perched at. Spiral-bound notebooks filled with spidery webs of words as she flicked from page to page. Her free hand slid books aside when they were exhausted, her writing fingers flexed when they were exhausted.

“What is it you do?”. The words hung, caught somewhere between innocence and inquisition. He knew the pause had gone on too long. Panic seized him as he thought of the hours he had spent, pen poised, thoughts muddled and incoherent. Words failed him; that was the problem, they always did.

“I’m a …”. Her beautiful eyes widened in expectation, then narrowed as the sentence hung there, suspended between the opening line of a great work and the whole story.

He gathered the books splayed in front of him, trying to hide the Berry pink flush that matched his treasured Leuchtturm notebook. His mumbled apology was barely discernible. “I’m sorry, I have to …”.

“Oh, was it … did I … look, sorry if I startled you. It’s just that …”. Her words tailed off. Dammit, it is so much easier to write things down, she thought.

Clutching his clumsily-gathered belongings to the sinking feeling in his tummy he turned - too quickly - and walked straight into the bookcase marked ‘English Poets’. Veering left he stumbled towards the stairs, not noticing in his haste that he had left the small silver case on the desk. “Sorry … sorry …”. The words faded as he took the stairs two at a time, racing his embarrassment to see who could make it out of the library first.

How odd, she murmured to no one in particular. As she turned, intent on hiding her own embarrassment deep among the shelves he regularly mined, the silver case winked up at her showing all the confidence its owner lacked. It looked directly into her beautiful green eyes, reflecting them back at her. It was smooth to her touch as her fingers explored its edges, the sharpness of its corners. She wondered how to unlock its secrets, whether she should or if she was even meant to. But it had reached out to her, hadn’t it? Idly, she caressed the clasp, the lock that kept its story hidden from casual inquiry. She pushed a little harder. It opened up to her.

A single card, three words in elegant script, a story unfolding.