A dreary blanket of clouds covered London most of the day, unusual neither for the time nor the season. But as the day waned, the weather took a strange if not sinister turn. Charcoal clouds overtook the lifeless sky, black-edged and illuminated from within by an eerie light. The sky simmered and then boiled like an inverted cauldron, bubbling and hissing, stirred by unseen hands.
Ronald stood quietly on the balcony of his flat and looked out upon the weather. He thought about his day at work, no more or less remarkable than any other day. He thought about the days to come, promising but more of the same. Lightning flashed toward the horizon, still too distant to be heard, still too distant to disturb his thoughts.
One might describe Ronald as average, no more or less remarkable than any other young man: short-haired, fair-skinned, and dark-eyed. He held a stable job, lived in a pleasant neighborhood, and enjoyed the company of a few close friends. One wouldn’t find anything outwardly wrong with Ronald.
Yet a mild frustration with his life had taken root. He found himself painfully trapped by what these close friends lightly dismissed as “first world problems.” His thirtieth birthday, still more than a year away, played one factor of his general discomfort. Ronald made the common (yet unavoidable) mistake of comparing his current life against the life his twenty-year-old self had envisioned and he found the gap unpleasantly wide.
Thunder now rolled in the distance. The inevitable rain had not yet arrived, but he had no plans to wait around for it. Ronald shook himself out of his reverie, turned back inside, and pulled the balcony door shut.
Another factor contributing to his general discomfort lay on the kitchen table. There, next to his untouched dinner, was a worn manila folder cradling a copy of his completed novel. A business card had been stapled to it, on which someone had scrawled a three-word question: “In or out?” Ronald had pondered this interrogative for some time now, to both positive and negative effect.
He approached the table, stared at the folder, but then stopped for more than a moment, as if his brain had come to a decision but his body had yet to catch up. When at last it did, he picked up the folder, grabbed his coat, and departed.
Ronald caught the tube and headed east, the short journey a blur as his mind floated elsewhere. Upon arriving at his destination, he emerged from the underground and began to walk. It was quite dark now and the scent of impending rain unmistakable. He quickened his pace.
After a few blocks, he came upon a narrow and twisting lane. Old, brick buildings flanked the slender passage. Not too far ahead, the road bent to the left, giving the lane a secret, sort of closed-off feeling.
He soon came upon his destination: an old bookshop. Ronald noted how it didn’t look any more or less dreary in this weather than on the sunny day when he first encountered it. No, this wasn’t his first trip down the old, curved lane. It wouldn’t be his last.
The storefront barely spanned five or six yards. Years of grime coated the large, paned window, erasing any possibility of the casual passer-by from peering in. The solid black door turned back anyone not deterred by the impenetrable window. The only sign of life in the old place came from the shop’s name: bright, gilded letters above the door, clinging in a desperate attempt at immortality: The Curious Bookshop.
Ronald’s heart quickened. He was ready. He’d convinced himself of that, right? Raindrops began to hit the pavement around him. He opened the folder and looked inside. His manuscript wasn’t alone. A small but significant stack of rejection letters kept it company. The drops fell harder and more frequently. Ronald, stirred into action far more by the rejections than the rain, walked to the door, closed his eyes, and gave it a pull. It opened and a warm, yellow light spilled out into the lane. Ronald stepped in.
A deep quiet fell as the door closed behind him. He brushed the rain off his coat and looked around. In spite of his many prior visits, this was his first time inside the bookshop.
Ronald found himself in a small, square room, perhaps fifteen feet to a side. Bookshelves filled every inch of wall space that wasn’t a door. There were two of those: the entrance he just used and another one on the left of the back wall. Three tables stood in the center of the room, each piled high with random volumes. A single lamp hung from the center of the ceiling.
He walked around the room, the dusty and uneven floorboards creaking with each step. He took in the bookshelves first before turning to the stacked books. There seemed to be no order: not by genre, not by author. He approached the first table and began to read the spines: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, The Plains of Passage by Jean Auel, L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
Ronald scanned the first table and moved onto the next. The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum, The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. He smiled at the sight of Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss and an old Where’s Wally? book by Martin Handford.
He leafed through a collection of Asimov’s short stories before a Calvin and Hobbes collection caught his attention. “What don’t they have here?” he thought to himself.
That thought sent his eyes to the back door. At first he assumed it led to an “employees only” area beyond his reach. But at that same moment he noticed something strange. He looked around again as if to confirm what he already knew. There was no counter, no cash register – no sign of commerce at all. He took a few steps to the back door, fully expecting it to be locked, and gave it a push. It opened.
The second room looked much the same as the first, except there were no tables. Shelves filled with books still covered the walls, floor to ceiling; and, just as before, there were two doors: an entrance and an exit, this time on the right side. This room seemed quieter than the first.
He turned to the shelf immediately behind him, tilted his head to the right, and looked over the new offerings. The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. “Oh look!” he said as he found a second Dr. Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham, placed with equal stature amongst the other literature. As he quickly scanned the next few shelves, he felt a slight pang of shame at how few titles he even recognized, let alone had ever read.
The next door soon beckoned. He tilted a copy of For Your Eyes Only back on the shelf, walked over to it, and gave it a pull. It opened and he passed through into a third room.
An unexplained feeling of discomfort interrupted his sense of wonderment as he took in this new room. It was the same size and shape as the first two. And, as he now expected, it had been built with one entrance and one exit. The same sort of shelves holding the same sort of books covered the walls. A solitary empty table stood in the center of the room, just a few feet in front of the exit centered in the back wall.
While there was nothing visibly wrong, he now felt uncomfortably out of place. Perhaps even trapped. Like a boy who’d inadvertently climbed a tree too high, or a diver whose eagerness to explore led her to an uneasy depth. The desire to return to terra firma overtook his sense of adventure.
With that, he distractedly glanced at a few books as he pondered the back door. The Maltese Falcon, As I Lay Dying. He took a few steps towards the back door. Cakes and Ale, The Secret of the Old Clock. He stood in front of the door, a sense of dread growing. Time seemed to stand still until . . .
“In or out?”
A strange voice tore through the silence and Ronald jumped out of his skin. He whipped around to see a kindly old man standing in front of the other door.
“Oh my . . . who are . . . where did you come from?” Ronald said, quickly spitting out three thoughts at once.
He stared at the old man, or ghost, or whatever seemed to have just appeared out of thin air. He wore a smart, grey tweed suit over a dark, navy vest. Round lenses magnified his old yet clear eyes. White hair covered his head and spilled down onto his shoulders. A dark blue bow tie completed the ensemble.
The old man repeated his question.
“Oh . . . I . . . um,” Ronald stammered as he continued to regain his composure.
The old man waited calmly before giving it a third go — only this time with raised eyebrows and a slight tilt of his head.
“Sorry! Yes, of course. In or out! Um . . . in?”
“That was my guess,” the old man replied with a smile. “Let us begin.”
“Begin?” Ronald asked. “Begin what?”