I let my lungs be filled with the unfiltered air of this musty scented bookshop.

The Bourbon colored windows are stout and non-descriptive about what's inside which is a bit uncommon for bookstores to have. This has a similar strange feeling that rarely happens when I go through Harvey's pile of magazines and find an "Engineering for Teens: Inspiration is everywhere".

It looks out of place.

On my entrance, I was hoping to hear a ting of a little bell on the top of the wooden door but the dramatic scene had been snatched away by some unnamed devil.

There was no bell.

The notes in the folder have scattered away in different, rebellious directions as if to distract me from one of the things to be done.

"Write down the subject of the Hypothesis on the scratch notes." This was the first instruction of the "Guide to writing a directive scratch note." which I borrowed from Mum's table where the first drawer from the top is labeled "How to do's".

I brush the comforting orange as the head of 4th page sneaks out of one corner.

'Letter to Dolorous.'

I draw a quick circle on the top of the 4th page where Dolorous's name is sitting in mass anxiety.

To draw inspiration, I blindly swing my eyes from the array of books that are trapped on the over head shelves with a thin line of unmoved dust resting without paying rent.

There's a Hemingway, then a A.H. Auden, William S. Burroughs, J. Joyace. Lewis and Carol.

I realize that in spite of sitting in the aisle of Fiction where the greatest writers of my great grandfather's generation are looking down upon me with utmost expectation.

I don't feel the great wave of intimidation swelling and swallowing me whole since they are just names to me and have no literary nor interested connection.

The creased, half broken page that was living in one of many of my untouched General Knowledge books is solicitously being examined.

It says, 'Dear Margaret' in a confident, cursive and clean arch of my handwriting.

It's no mystery to judge the age of this paper since the signature of a dust mite and a paper cutter beetle's home have certainly turned it into a relic.

This is the thousand dollar moment of extended bouts of hormones.

'Dear Dolorous,

I hope Birmingham is treating you in a sweet tone. It would be a poor lie to say that we had left things in a misguided and misunderstood manner. I have been around Jackie's house lately to spend some quality time with him but I was being constantly distracted by the yellow light on the kitchen ceiling.

It was falling exactly at a right angle on the dishwasher where we first had a real conversation.

I could stand there for a while and pictures us talking and passively fuming at each other at first but Jackie's mother was slightly scared by my silence so I had to break it off.

Dear Dolorous, you little kyke.

I don't have to remind myself about how bold you were that night. Going on and on about how you are going to give Jackie the best 5 days of his life. Do I have to drag in the promise of always being there for him? I certainly don't have to. Even though you have forgotten how to be his friend, I didn't.

All the letters that you haven't written, the familiar number that you haven't dialed in a while and all the snaps of the school ground and every where you could possibly take him. It adds up to a complete nothing.

You can call me nosy and a lot of things but I would like to present the title "Visionary" to myself. I do not know if your skill of vocabulary is up to mark or it's just another facade of your "Intensive Juvenile Eccentricity" but I am prone to not taking any chances.

"Visionary - A person who thinks about or plans the future with imagination and wisdom."

The emphasis is put on the word "Wisdom and imagination" and if you look a bit closer to the Oxford definition of it, emotion is not an essential and some scholars even consider it as a drawback of being a visionary.

Sounds familiar to someone I know.

In case you haven't notice, Jackie's parents marriage has drawn a trajectory to the fiery explosion. According to cause and effect, he has become depressed, anxious, worried.

In another words, everything I thought he would be.

This is not a competition of affection, Dolorous. Jackie has gone off the rail. His smoking habit is a new addition to his character that we both can agree to it as our mutual dislike. Cigarettes today and who knows on what day we'll find him along the "Homeless boys of Elvis Ridge".

The way Lisa has been acting lately tells me that those days are nearer than comfort.

I saved him from the school's grasp. He was smoking in the broken down Chemistry lab and I took the bullet of the authority's investigation. My mother's been furious by the whole event of my smoking but it was a risk that I was willing to take for the benefit of my traumatic and quite possibly "soon to be from a broken home" friend.

I shall forever be Jackie's friend and confidante in the fullest meaning of the words. The history of Jackie shall always remember me. It is a matter of debate if the marriage actually breaks or not, but when his age is swimming down the white haired, creased skinned, poor eyesighted 60, he will talk about me and sweep past the fact that you have done nothing over the years.

You have been some forgetful "Sweet nothing".

This is not personal even though at this moment when your fingertips are pressing down the sides of the page and breaking the smoothness, you'll understand that my facts have not been mixed with imagination or hatred.

Personally, I like you, in some ways. Maybe more than others.

Don't beat yourself up too much. There's still time. I do not have any knowledge about the divorce rate in Birmingham but I did get a look at the map in Geography class.

The population is larger than Seinefield.

I think you wouldn't have any trouble getting a few contact cards of some well suited divorce lawyers. I prefer it if you sent them anonymously to Jackie to still maintain some of the respect, remaining well wishes he has for you.

He still does. I want to call him an idiot but you can tell that I am not a rude person.

Well wishes and farewell,
Gotfrey.

"Hello?" The voice in the back has dazzled the bouts of self satisfaction away from my lips.

The shocking stance quarks a ripple in my posture.

The last "Y" of my name trails off to a long swish.

I accidentally slash the starting line of a graphite landscape.

This is a mistaken masterpiece.

I don't reach for the eraser on the butt, but the greeting tone of the voice does reach me.

"Hello. Hi." The voice is old and grizzled. It matches the face of the beholder of the tone as my body switches around like a swivel chair in a full, uninterrupted motion.

All I can see is the large splotch of a brown sweater, puffed and worn with the appropriate signs of being favorite as I also make out the fact that he is standing close. Close enough that I can tackle him in the traditional football way if I dive.

"Hi?"
"Hello." He greets again.

We are too bolted by each other's presence to move further away from introductory verses.

At this moment, he isn't wearing any spectacles but from his arched eye brows, it tells me that he is quite acquainted with the torture of looking at everything through a pair of lenses.

Mum has the similar facial expression when she watches the weekly cooking show without having suitable time to recall and search for her glasses which, in terms of materialistic placement, could be anywhere.

"Are you here to buy any books? Looking for something in particular?" He leans forward in excitement.

This gives me a quick window of opportunity to inspect his face more.

During one of our rare family talks in dining table, my mother once had the intention to suddenly drag "Stranger danger" in. After the minute and her rough, aggressive pronunciation of the "Stranger", she depleted the mystery by explaining about her article on. "Child safety during commuting".

"Always inspect that face, Frey. The disposition. The eyes. The tone of--character."

The safety center of my brain was momentarily afraid of mum since the silver spoon was being violently waved by her swinging wrist towards me.

Later that week, I saw my mum writing the description of the man who accidentally and by his own honest mistake, knocked on our door, thinking we were the Andrew family.

"Um--? "

"What kind of book are you looking for?" He inquires again. His eyes has narrowed on the side but his cheeks are puffed with a childlike excitement.

He is everything other than "Stranger danger".

"Any--um fiction? " He gestures overhead. I spit a blunt grunt as I swing around since in my mind, the letter to Dolorous is still being written and added with new, aggravating and patronizing words.

"I've got Fitzgerald, Kafka, um--Yeats is not here. His ones are in the back. Sinclair, Stowe, a bit of Darwin, maybe? You like a Darwin? More of the--um--what's he called?"

He snaps his fingers in the air. The timely jolt of his body crumples the waist of his shirt as his saggy belt buckle thunks.

A pair of brows that are like snowcaps on the mountain of his carefully shaped face, decorated by a couple of flanges where the lower one faltered forward. He has matured eyes, which are mainly holding the added flare of multiple creases like train tracks on maps.

His hair is the living evidence of an inside snow fall in October.

The words "Someone else's Grandfather" catapults in my head.

Dolorous is fired from my mind without a two weeks notice.

"Hmph." He sighs as his premature joy folds itself back to his cheeks. "You are not here to buy anything, are you?"
"No, I'm--um--I'm just waiting for someone."
"Someone who?"
"Um--a friend of mine. She told me--that we should meet here."
"So, you don't like any of the books? Here?" His eyes replaces the gestures of his hands.
"I'm sure--they're alrig--good."
"Good?"
"It's just--"
"You know, this isn't the café. I think you just read the sign and the address wrong." He exhausts the air.

The sound of his breath has the threatening aspect of losing self esteem.

"The café's just outside. Walk across. Can't miss it." His posture continues to spell peril to my self worth as his back slouches and the sound of his pants being hassled airs.

"No, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Red Herring, isn't it?"

His neck elongates the act of swivel as he turns his body around.

The smile on his lips are unmistakable as they wither to perform a full smile.

His lack of facial strength adds to his friendliness.

The question of "who's Grandpa he currently is" is bulging at the back of my head.

"Yes, it is." He stops midway of his walk which is aimed at the desk, sitting on the side of the room. The sneaky slice of a mid day sunshine shoots a round of illumination across his face as he halts.

"What day it is?" His question blurs me for a second because of his low voice that seems to murmur. He holds the probability of talking to himself.

I see a bit of mutual characteristic of my mother in him since Mum's unforeseen bouts of passion often leads me to find her talking to herself when she thinks no one is looking.

"Wednesday."

"Oh." It takes him forever to get to the disk where a simple leather bag is sitting on the wooden chair. One quick look at it makes me wonder that the bag could be as old as the man, if not more.

I am quite grateful to the power of nature, the cycle of life and the liveliness of my current age since the man in front is just elderly enough to hit a nerve of my contentment.

I think of how many jumping jacks I can do before he stumbles to reach the desk.

If I crawl and squirm like a worm, I could get there before him.

I don't perform the ridicule showcase of agility since I have already achieved my quota of being mean.

It wasn't mean, I think to myself.

"So, anything you would like to have? See something good?" He emits a breathing sound, similar to the loud gasps you can hear near the school pool, as he leans over the desk and scribbles down something in hasty posture.

"Um . . . have any--" I'm hassling the creases of my memory which is used to reading the titles of books, article papers, newspaper of old and ancient dates written down by the rapid swish of mum's wrist.

"Any Tolstoy?"
"You mean, Leo Tolstoy?" He snarls and in the process, swallows down the rising cough as he smiles.

"Yeah, sorry."
"No, I have some Tolstoy too. They are in Row C, third from the last." His arm shoots out to the other side of the room where the darkened wooden décor has been enslaved by a glaze of sunlight through half drawn blanks on the window.

"Alright, thanks." I realize that I have left the letter and The Prime Directive guide which was meant for Margaret are sitting on the table.

"I'll show you." The broad smile spreads the crumpled up skins to the sides as he ponders a moment for something.

Mrs. Bonneville, my neighbor next door, is a provider of bad reputation of elderly people.

Our last interaction was last Friday when mum sent Dad and I to greet her in the afternoon with home made garlic bread and spiced up veggies.

Mrs. Bonneville was somewhat happy to see me but the leftover gladness disappeared when my father entered the house with the large pot.

Mrs. Bonneville cannot whisper and it's a proven fact since Dad heard when she strangely gestured me to the arm chair in the middle and performed the failed mummer.

"Who's that man?"
"I'm Frey's father, Jerry. Julia's husband." Dad smirked to keep the social dignity.

She cropped a funny smile and her crazy eye brows tweaked as she stated, "I thought Julia was divorced."

I let him lead once more, just for the sake of leadership as he steps forward in un-turned haste.

"You read Tolstoy?"
"Um . . I tried. Mum does. She's making a collection."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. She's committed to classics."
"Can't blame her. Leo knows his stuff. Which one does she like best?"
"Ana Karenina."
"War and Peace?"
"That takes some commitment."
"You said it. How about the one . . . Sevastopol Sketches?"
"It's on her shelf."

I nod agreeing. I haven't read a single line of Tolstoy except for the distinct paragraphs which mum reads from "War and Peace". During those times, I bet on the quantity of paragraphs to measure her departure before she starts chopping the tomatoes in cubes.

So far I won five.

"Are these yours?" He carefully points to the splotch of scattered pages along the wood work.
"Yeah, those are mine. I brought them with me."
"Oh. What are you . . doing a bit of writing?" His neck cranes down from the view to the top.

The shirt around his neck sits misplaced to a side, revealing a bit of skin.

Nothing but wrinkles.

Unlike Mrs. Bonneville, I'm not disgusted by the features of this new specie who all spent more than 60 years on this huge plant and in the same body.

"No, it's nothing of--that sort. I don't write. It's just some letters--it's not even finished. "

It is very much finished.

I excel at writing hate mails.

But these are some facts about self which are hard to explain to people.

"Who is it to?" He cocks his eye. The smile instinctively follows.

"To my sister. She lives away from home." I pull the face which is always brought up whenever our biology teacher, Mrs. Muhr comes up to the laboratory to check our work.

"Oh. People do write letters still." His breath has the screaming potential of becoming a sigh.

I am slightly worried.

"I thought telephones took it all away."

"Can't blame science." I smirk in arrogance which has something to do with age and technology.

"No, I don't. I mean I know it does all the things and takes away the pain of waiting and all the good things they say on TV and the commercials." His nostrils explode from the entrance of a lungful of air.

"But you have to admit, that--it takes away the--um--the excitement, the--waiting, the tension, the--"
"Pizzaz?" I step in for the blanks.
"Yes. Yes. That. Pizzaz!"
"And you can't write a telephone conversation down. I mean, you can but that's hard work and it's not the same way. It's--"
"Interrupted. Too hasty, right?" He joins in the gap.

I am making a mental note about asking my parents about the identity of their previous generation, my grandparents.

"It doesn't have the same punch." I brush across the edge and feel the deep trench around the word 'Dolorous' on the corner of the 4th page.

I can tell that we are sharing a moment because the unnamed librarian has stopped poking the strong spines of the books and decided to donate a moment in constant eye contact.

"Um--letters." He mumbles before he realizes his primary goal on life.
"Tolstoy."

I indicate as I carefully hide the bundle of evidence in the folder. The left hand stretches out till I feel the ridged etching on the left side of the folder.

'News house. '94. Goodbyes and love.' It's not too difficult to understand that it's my mother's handwriting.

For an instant, with the glower of the bursting sunlight bulldozing into the room, the man with his arm shuffling the barrage of spines to pull out a book, the imagination of the look on Dolorous's face when she reads the letter, I tempt the Universe by admiring how happy I am without going through the trouble of comparison.

"What's your name, young man?"
"Gotfrey." My lips spreads without reason. I'm interested to showcase my happiness.
"Peter Carpenter."

As also stated in Mum's circular explanation of colors, brown is a warm color which defines the adjectives wood color, earth, healing and home.

"Carpenter." I mumble.