Fantasy, short story

Kinaadman

july-25

He escaped into words. The world outside of his head was too sharp and drew too much blood. It was all shards anyway raining down in an endless fall as his life broke apart. So he hid himself away from the creditors. Let them repossess all he owned. He didn’t care.

Beneath a loose board in the old library’s floor, he lay waiting for night to come and the doors of that establishment to close. One day they’d renovate and find his nook secreted into a room long ago boarded up and forgotten about but for now, it was shelter. It was home. At last he heard the sound he’d waited for–the triple beep of an alarm being activated.

Sliding back the board, he crept out and stretched cramped muscles. His eyes, which had adjusted to the dark when he’d sought sanctuary here, required no further illumination than the moon’s silver glow washing in through the clerestory windows.

He prowled the reference section that walled in his refuge with knowledge, seeking the one tome that would explain it all. His fingers skipped over the spines and he inhaled the heavenly scent of kinaadman–old paper, a hint of dust and leather. Plucking out a discourse on Plato, he sighed and lost himself in a wise man’s words.

Thanks to Maria of Doodles and Scribbles and Rosema of A Reading Writer for Word High July #FilipinoWords #Prompt.

29 thoughts on “Kinaadman”

  3. Great read here Melinda! Feel we both went in similar directions with todays word: Books! Haha. They’re such great holders of knowledge, both the philosophical and the arcane 😉

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