If Things Should Stay the Same

Chapter 6: Overheard

After giving three gentle knocks on the door and calling out for his father's permission to enter, he did not expect to be waiting for more than ten minutes just to receive an answer. Normally his father was quick to respond to anyone wishing to speak with him in his study – regardless if it was a visitor, a family member, or a household employee. The longest delay that had ever occurred was approximately five minutes when he was too engrossed with his work and did not hear anyone the first time.

Pressing his lips against each other, he did three more sharp raps in rapid succession with his knuckles. With still no reply coming from the other side, he took a deep breath and mentally apologized to his father for barging in uninvited. There was something he needed to discuss with him as soon as possible and, if fortune would so happen to favor him, he was hoping it could be this very moment.

He slowly twisted the knob and pushed the door open, ensuring as little noise as possible while he went inside the study. He did not want to disturb his father's concentration on something of great importance or of unusual interest that both of his attempts at making his presence known fell on deaf ears.

Carefully treading over the wooden floorboards to ensure his sneakers did not make even the slightest sound, he made his way through the symmetrically-arranged aisles of furniture that housed his father's massive collection of literature. An avid reader and a persistent learner, his father had amassed enough reading materials that both upper and lower levels of the study were almost completely filled up on every shelf and rack.

As he passed through the first few shelves which contained both paperback and hardcover novels from many well-renowned authors of the classic and modern era, he knew he had to venture in deeper upon being unable to see any trace of his father lounging on the suede couches, or leaving opened books or stacks of them on the nearby coffee tables.

Not as particularly lengthy as the previous one, the second set of bookcases housed reference materials – such as almanacs, atlases, encyclopedias and dictionaries – and at the end of it was a rectangular desk in the center of the room. On a corner of the table's surface were a magnifying glass, a lamp and a pen holder in the shape of a can which had several pencils, a marker and a pair of scissors.

Still no trace of his father, he pressed on to the innermost section of the lower floor which gradually narrowed into a claustrophobia-inducing passageway. Numerous magazines, research journals and other periodicals of various subjects were categorized by publishers and stacked side by side on the wall-mounted ledges that began from the near bottom of the wall and almost touched the ceiling. Often close by were a pair of adjustable stepladders in order to access the topmost arrangement of reading materials.

Having seen all the vacant beanbags that had been generously scattered at the broader entrance leading to this area, he knew he had to check the second floor of the study for his father.

Briskly walking back to where the shelves of the reference books began and those of the novels ended, he ascended the spiral staircase, the soles of his shoes lightly tapping against the black metal platforms, his hand gliding ahead on the smooth polished surface of the rails. As he came to the end of the flight of steps, he heard a series of faintly-audible voices speaking to each other.

Tiptoeing his way across carpeted floor of the upper level, he only stopped in his tracks when the volume of their ongoing discussion was enough to allow him to roughly pinpoint the change of active speakers as well as hear every word clearly. The space between the books at his eye level and the shelf directly above them were identical enough with those of subsequent bookcases, enabling him to see his father and six others seated around the round table farther off to the center of the room.