Taxi waiting at curb
Library books on lap. Suitcase on back seat
Time on dashboard clock: 7.18
Wait a minuteā¦ 7.18??
Unread phone notification: Daylight saving ends. Remember to put clocks back one hour
At least now she wouldn’t miss her flight
The driver slowed to a stop across the road from the red brick library
which was still shut since it was only 7.23am
A woman with a familiar face was walking a cute labradoodle
and holding a warm cup of coffee in one hand
Zayla unbuckled her seatbelt and scooped up the stack of heavy books in both arms,
resting her chin firmly on the top of the stack to hold it in place
Far too many books. She always meant to only borrow two or three at a time,
but then she’d spot another, and another,
and before she knew it there were seventeen books on her bedside table
bursting with new adventures, characters, recipes, photographs, and worlds to explore
Shutting the door of the car with her foot,
she crossed half way to the yellow centre line of the street
With traffic flowing in opposite directions either side of her,
Zayla’s arms began to ache underneath the weight of the books
She couldn’t wait to offload them into the ‘Return Books Here’ slot
on the wall to the left of the huge emerald green door with the brass handles
The library door always reminded her of a mystical secret portal to another land
It looked like it belonged to a story book rather than a modern building
At last, a gap in the trafficā¦ could she make it?
She decided to run across the lane as one driver slowed enough to let her cross
The car behind them tooted their horn impatiently
Zayla’s view was impaired by the book closest to her nose and she misjudged the height of the curb
Her right shoe caught the edge of the cobblestone, and she began to lose her balance
She felt the neatly stacked books begin to slide out of formation and escape from between her arms
A burgundy covered cookbook with sticky fingerprints and butter stained pages
landed with a thud on the side walk and fell open to a recipe for plum flavored jello
Zayla found it odd that her arms still felt so heavy even though the books were no longer within their grasp
She couldn’t be sure, but from the corner of her eye it seemed as though
all the cars had disappeared from the road the moment the books had hit the ground
Everything had frozen into place and she was falling …fallingā¦. endlessly falling