Chapter 1

I was sitting comfortably on my chair, having my daily dose of coffee with the smell of new and old books wafting through the air in my small and cosy library. Looking out the glass doors, the sound of people rushing, taxis honking and the overall commotion of New York City is all one could hear and see in the morning. I often wonder whether those thousands of people out there always rushing took a break from their mundane lives and enjoy the beauty and calmness that nature has to offer, but money was the only priority nowadays I guess.

I never really liked city life, but I had to earn a living for me and my mother. I really loved and dreamed to have a comfortable little lake house overlooking a beautiful blue lake surrounded by lush green trees, but one doesn't get everything they want. It was 10:00 in the morning and almost every day at this time David would come and visit me while we would have long conversations on various books. He was like a father to me, the father I never had.

Mr. David Black is the owner of Black Industries, the biggest industry in U.S. Despite running such a big business, he takes out time to indulge in books and other activities life has to offer. He was getting old and tired so I told him to consider retiring and hand over the business to his son, to which he said that he might consider doing.

The door bell jingled as I broke out of my train of thoughts, I looked up and saw David and smiled happily.

“David! Good morning, how are you!?" He chuckled at my enthusiasm as he always found my peppiness quite amusing.

"I'm great my dear, how are you and your mother?"

"Oh we both are fine as usual. Would you like some coffee?"

"Do you actually think I'll turn down coffee made by you? I don’t think so." I smiled and got up

"I'll be right back with your coffee, sir" I said in a mock waitress voice as he laughed lightly.

The day was quite boring after David left, but I was worried about my business because people now preferred buying books online rather than going to a library and buying, which was a whole different experience all together. So I thought about buying the empty shop next door and expand my library by including a café, so that the people can relax and enjoy reading their books. The total amount of money to expand was totally out of my budget. David insisted on helping me by providing the money, but I couldn’t take up on his offer, I didn’t want to be indebted to him even though he told me that I didn't have to return the money.

The whole day I only made five sales, which was a lot less as compared to earlier times, when I always had a line of customers at the cash counter. At around 6 in the evening, I closed the shop and headed home, which was on the poor side of the city. Me and my mother lived in a small two bedroom apartment that we had bought while moving to New York.

Later during the night, we had dinner and as I was getting ready for bed I got a phone call from David, I looked at the clock and saw that it was 11:00.

"Hello David, what's up?"

"Hey Scarlett, tomorrow I need to talk about something very important and of urgent matter, so can you come to my office at 10 in the morning?" I could sense his urgency and replied

"Of course David I will"

"Thank you so much Scarlett. Good night"

"Good night" with that he cut the phone.

As I lay on my bed I couldn’t help but think about tomorrow morning. It was very unusual of him to call at this hour especially asking me to come over to office to discuss something important. What do I have to do anything regarding his business? With a sigh I turned off the table lamp and went into a deep slumber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[closed]

very nice beginning
sets the mood quite well

and the theme is sure to follow

[Surya pradha]

nice chapter. keep the story going!

[Jennie Baron]

A very good chapter overall; you've set up the next one well. There are some grammatical errors, most noticeably for me changes in verb tense, which should be consistent. But that's easy to fix and I'll see what happens next!

[Zahra]

I'll make sure to correct all grammatical errors and thank you very much for liking my story! :)