Requiem by B. Scott Tollison Read Free Book Online Page B

books tilted towards her. She dropped Sherlock to the floor
and forced the side of her body against the leaning tower. It took
all her weight just to stop the stack from completely collapsing.
She looked back at the floor where Sherlock had fallen. He had
knocked the base of another stack. It was toppling towards her.
Seline threw her hand back to prop it up while her right foot shot
out to support yet another stack in front of her. A small plume of
dust had formed around her. She tilted her head back to escape the
swarm of floating debris. Abigail was now shuffling in from the
kitchen. The embarrassment of Seline's predicament kept her from
calling for help. She had been left seated quietly in a chair and
was now rampaging like an apologetic Godzilla through the
leather-bound structures of the living room. The particles of dust
tickled the inside of her nose. She reared her head back further to
avoid sneezing.
    Abigail entered
the room as a sneeze tore its way out of Seline. Her right hand
slipped and she fell to the floor with mountains of books crashing
down around her. It was over in only a few seconds and Seline was
left sitting in the middle of a cloud of dust with bent pages and
frayed edges forming the surrounding rubble. The stack of thin
spined books that precipitated the scene had been smeared out over
the floorboards. Thinner black disks had slid from between their
pages.
    'I see you've
found my record collection,' said Abigail. Her voice held no anger
or condescension. 'Luckily I keep the hardbacks in the other room!'
She placed the tea on the stand and came to assist Seline who was
hoping that the dimness of the candles would hide the redness in
her face.
    'Are you
alright?' Abigail asked.
    'I. Am. So . Sorry. I'll, I'll clean this up.'
    'Oh, don't
worry about it. It's probably more organised now than it was before
anyway.'
    Abigail waved
her hand in the air while looking over the wreckage then turned
around as if nothing had happened.
    'You don't mind
green tea do you?' she asked as she went back to the table.
    Not being
appeased by Abigail's complete dismissal of the mess she had made,
Seline began re-stacking the books.
    'Green tea's
fine, thank you,' said Seline. She hated green tea.
    Seline picked
up one of the black disks from the floor and slid it back into its
envelope. She tried to start a conversation to distract herself
from her own embarrassment.
    'I thought
these were books at first,' she said.
    'Those are
called records, dear. They're a bit before your time. Quite a bit
before my own time to be honest.'
    A lot of the
covers portrayed grainy, out-of-focus photos of instruments and
musicians in obscure, uncomfortable looking poses.
    'This is how
people used to listen to music?' she asked as she repackaged and
organised the records.
    'It was.' She
sighed and thought for a moment. 'But sometimes it doesn't pay to
have such antiquated habits.'
    Seline looked
at the floor again unsure of what to say next. She stood up and
moved over to the empty chair. A record sleeve lying at the feet of
the chair caught her eye. A thick white border surrounding a lonely
photo of two men shaking hands one of whom appeared to be on fire.
She stared at the picture, trying to imagine what music would
inspire such an image, but Abigail broke the thought with a loud
sip from her tea cup. Seline instinctively sat down and reached for
the cup which had been placed on the small side table for her. The
tea cup resembled a thimble, even within the fingers of hands as
small as hers. She took a short, quiet sip, smiled nervously,
holding the cup in her palms, resting on her lap.
    The old clock
sitting on the mantle ticked and tocked, bracketing and
accentuating the silence between each methodical beat. In this
small, anomalous room the clock hands moved but time had been
stubbornly walking in the opposite direction or rather had been
dragged that way.
    'Do you
remember me at all, Seline?' asked Abigail. ‘You used to be a
student