'Stophanging around, kid. Are you drinking this fucking coffee down orshould I pour it into your throat instead?'
Themalicious hiss of an elderly librarian nearly brought Ben a heartattack, pealing just an inch from his oversensitive ear. He spilled alittle of the dark liquid on the front of his shirt, which wasluckily in a jet-black color (despite mother had stubbornly tried toencourage him to finally wear something in a not-coffin color, Benhad known better). So now the stain seemed barely visible, glisteninginsensibly in the dim light. Either way, Ben headed to abroomstick-seized bathroom to dry it off with a paper towel, rilingthe senile librarian with his deliberately languid pace.
Motheralways forbade him to drink coffee, pointing out that caffeine had abad impact on his stress level. But damn, Ben was twenty. He hadevery right not to listen to his mommy. Even if she was a bloodymayor of the whole Chandrila.
Notthat Ben liked that bitter liquid very much himself, but sometimes ithelped to brace his mind for incoming human interactions,accelerating his already racing thoughts beyond possible imagination- chaos so intensive Ben didn't have time to focus on each singledoubt bothering him, all of them spinning in his mind like a wildwhirl.
Hammeringon the flimsy bathroom's door did not surprise him at all.
'Whatthe hell are you doing there for so long?! Everyone is waiting whileyou do dirty in the toilet! Get the hell our right now or I swearI'll tell your father...'
Beforeshe could finish, Ben opened the door. Goddamned Maz Kanata didn'tintend to leave him alone even in the bloody bathroom.
Assoon as he poked his nose out of the doorway, she coarsely grabbedhim by the elbow and dragged out into the narrow corridor - using herbrutal, elderly strenght and digging long, curved nails deep in theflesh of his forearm. Ben could feel her big, cheap rings imitatingprecious metals already bruising his pale skin.
'Ijust wanted to clean the stain you helped in making, Maz,' Benmuttered under his breath, knowing in advance that all the possibleexcuses would be useless.
'Yeah,sure you did. I'm not a fool, whipster,' Maz snorted, which remindedan angry mare's neigh.
Ben swallowed his humiliation, trying not to grit his teeth tooloudly. People of Maz's species remained blind and deaf to otherhumans' words, as it was enough for them to feed on their owndegenerate conclusions about the motives of depraved youth. UsuallyBen would agree with them, since an opinion he got about his owngeneration was far from flattering - but when he was degraded to a'whipster', it seemed difficult to keep his blood from gurglingthrough his veins. The Voice prompted him he should make Maz pay forsuch treatment. Ben pushed it out and instead allowed her to lead himto the space that used to function as the library's reading room.
Uponentering, it turned out that 'everyone' whom Maz had meant were allseven people - and a half, if to count an overactive brat squirmingon some woman's lap. The squeaky chairs in the hall had been preparedfor about fifty guests - Ben wasn't sure whether their town even hadthat many inhabitants, but it wasn't the time to question thedecisions of this matriarchal library mare. Not that Ben hadsomething against mares or women, but when one was mixed with theother, it was already beyond an average human's endurance.
'Sitdown,' Maz growled in his ear, as though Ben was a three-year-oldboy, not a rather bulky, though a bit clumsy twenty-year-old man.Anyway, he had no choice but to locate on a meager chair in thecenter of an improvised stage.
Maz took a seat on a no-better wooden stool, swaying slightly underher unbalanced weight (Ben secretly bet when one of the four legsfell off spectacularly and the chair would simply collapse under theblissfully unaware Maz). 'Welcome to the next meeting in the cycleCurious Man from an Uninteresting City,' she chirped, putting on thehypocritical mask of a benevolent librarian and rubbing her wrinkledhands. Several rings twisted on her gnarled fingers. 'First of all,thank you all for such numerous arrival. Your presence shows that thereadership's spirit in Chandrila hasn't died yet.'
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FanfictionBenjamin Solo hasn't have an easy life. No matter what everyone says. That he's a graphomaniac who earned millions with his worthless prose, while his books should be thrown to a garbage compactor. When he starts working in a bookstore led by one o...
