An afternoon in the bookshop

Making his way past the encyclopaedias, Horatio looked through the shelves labelled 'mystery'. He ran his fingers along the spines until he found the place he was looking for. He made a space beside the other books by an author called 'Sherman' and placed the one in his hand in the gap.

“Mightn't the customers get confused? I know that was our original intention, but, well. Fair's fair,” Hori called out over the shelves.

“Confused? Seems clear enough to me,” Carl called back. “It makes sense to put books about which we know very little in the 'mystery' section.”

“Yes, yes. But what if they want a novel of the mystery genre?” Hori asked, ignoring Carl's chuckles.

As a giant, olive-green fish, Carl felt better suited to customer service in the bookshop, and as such, left most of the running around to Horatio. Carl was fit enough, and the shelves were far enough apart that he could maneuver around them with relative ease. However, he often found that customers sometimes had a great deal of trouble squeezing past him, so he resided mostly behind the counter.

“Then they can look in the 'thriller' section, or under 'detective' or perhaps 'horror'. I think we've scattered most of them through 'general fiction'. It adds character to the shop, in my opinion.”

“I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does. The sudden showers have certainly helped business today, I'd say. The day doesn't know whether it wants to be sunny and cheerful or bleak and miserable. It's keeping everyone on their toes.”

“It'd be nice if the rain let up for more than fifteen minutes. We might be able to throw the frisbee later,” said Carl, looking out the window. People on the footpath were quickening their pace in response to the latest sun shower.

“Why would rain bother you?” Hori asked. Horatio, unlike Carl, was entirely human.

“Just thinking of you, my dear. Just thinking of you.”

Hori stepped over the cart of new books he was putting away and walked through to the back room.

“More lapsang souchong, Carl?”

“Oh, no, thank you. My stomach's getting more and more sensitive,” said Carl, wistfully.

Carl watched through the doorway as Hori poured a cup from the pot. Horatio breathed in the smoky scent of the tea and let out a sigh.

“You know what's funny, Carl?” Horatio asked suddenly.

“Clowns, movies with poorly translated subtitles, turtles that land on their back and have trouble getting up-”

“Har har,” said Hori sarcastically. “What really is funny is that very little happens around here-”

“That's not particularly funny,” Carl piped in.

“Let me finish. Let me finish. It's just that nothing particularly exciting happens around here, and, well... I don't really mind.”

“I know what you mean.”

Carl smiled at Hori as he blew on his tea to cool it.