No Hope In Dawn

Chapter 5: Tasteless Deaf

Freshly brewed coffee, various tea leaves, herbs, dried fruits, and the smell of aging ink on paper. These are the distinguishing scents of the Tomes and Teas Bookshop. The old man that runs the place enjoys the smell of his establishment as he mixes ingredients with a mortar and pestle. He gently fixes the glasses resting on the bridge on his nose so he could see better.

The shop wasn't that big, it could hold a maximum of 20 people, but it was big enough to hold secrets and stories of thousands of people within the space. The walls are lined with tall shelves filled with books, both with familiar titles and titles you couldn't even pronounce. Some of the books were free to be borrowed and read, while the others, you'll need special permission from the owner.

The shelves tower around couches and tables and chairs and a bar counter, there was no uniform within the furniture, as if they were all just picked randomly from garage sales or brought there by the patrons. A hardwood door lies between the outside world and this seemingly archaic library. There was no kitchen in the bookshop, but there was a small stove and microwave hidden behind the bar counter to prepare some food and light snacks. There were two other doors in the bookshop teashop fusion; the first was a unisex bathroom, the second one, no one really knows for sure because it is never opened.

Only a few people were there that afternoon, all of them regulars the old man notices. A couple sits together on one of the couches, both ordered tea, that sit unsipped on their table while they both read different books, stopping every now and then to show the other an amusing part they have read. Notebooks are scattered on the counter top along with a third cup of coffee, all belonging to a student who has the world on mute with headphones on as he jots down notes and lectures. An old woman admires some of the unusual titles on the shelves, she smiles a sad smile as she feels like she knows what they mean, but can't seem to remember what it was.

The old man, the owner of the odd shop, is Jonah; he has short, straight white hair, thick rectangular glasses covering his squinting eyes. He has no facial hair to cover his aging face, but he has a look that says he just didn't care about growing old; he looks warm, kind, and friendly. Some customers even joke that he looks like a Santa Claus who lost weight and his beard, but not his spirit. Most of the veteran regulars know that nobody should ever piss the old man off though, some of them hear rumors that those kind eyes, once saw the devil and death when he was still a sailor, while there are also an unlucky few, who saw the devil and death in those kind eyes.

He puts the ingredients he was preparing in a small teardrop-shaped vial; there was already some blue liquid inside. He seals the vial with a cork and stores it in the cooler below the counter.

Jonah smiles, he likes the simplicity of the day. He didn't have to worry too much, there were only few customers, and he only had to make one special order. There was only peace, quiet, tea, and books. He wonders whether he could just run a normal tea shop for once, but that thought was kicked out of his mind when the door opened and he sees Lysandra walk in with a girl covering her ears beside her.

As they got closer, he notices why the girl was covering her ears, they were bleeding. Lysandra takes a bunch of tissue and gives it to the girl who wipes some on her teary eyes, then her ears. The girl looked around the same age as Lysandra and they were both wearing the same school uniform. She was panicking and looks like she'll lose her mind. Lysandra, on the other hand, looks calm and relaxed.

She starts to explain, but the old man silences her with a finger, and asks, "You do know that is unappetizing to some of my customer?"

Lysandra looks around then answers, "They don't look bothered to me though." True enough, the old woman is seated down taking sips on her tea while daydreaming about those unusual books, the student doesn't even look up from his notebooks. The most reaction they got was from the couple who looked over and whispered some stuff to each other before going back to their own books, deeming the scene to be too boring compared to what they were reading.