“I know your in there! Don’t try to hide, I want my money!” A voice accompanied by banging on a door stirred me awake. Grunting, I try to go back to sleep but the banging continues.

“Wake up or I bust down the door! I don’t care it’s mine anyway!” The last words were like an electric shock in my spine causing me to sit straight up in my bed. 

“I’m here! I’m here!” I answered the booming voice while stumbling out of my covers.

“I know, now open this damn door!” the old feminine voice said. I was about to open the door when I realized I was still in my underwear.

“Ah… Wait for one more second while I find pants, please.” I said while frantically searching through my apartment for a cleanish pair. My apartment had never been this bad before since I couldn’t keep a stable job. After a few minutes, I found a pair of shorts that didn’t smell like old cheese and I opened the door to find an angry old lady with a pink apron full of kitchen tools and a freshly used ladle in a hitting stance. It was the landlady of the apartment I was currently living in.

“Where is my money you little…” She began to say while raising her kitchen tool before I cut her.

“Let’s not resort to such archaic ways and talk like adults.” I said jokingly, “What's more, as soon as I find a job, I’ll be able to pay you back.”

“You already said that last month! Look, I know your situation in and I am sorry but I need to get paid one day or another.” She said while rolling her rs in that weird accent that only old people have.

“Plus, look at you!” she continued, “Your hairs are so long and you probably haven’t washed in a while.”

“My hair was always about this long,” I said, trying to find a way out of this conversation.

Seeing my discomfort but mostly because she pitied me, the landlady departed while warning me to better have the rent next month.

As I closed the door, I asked myself how I was supposed to pay this month’s rent. I sat on my baseless mattress and began searching on my phone for a job opening near my apartment that could at least let me pay my angry landlady and hopefully turn her into a mildly annoyed landlady.

After a few minutes of scrolling through the job offers near me, I finally found one that looked at least a little interesting. It was in a small library on the corner of the street and the owner was an old man looking for help to run the bookstore. I immediately wrote to him about my interest in the job as soon as I finished reading the description. The old man referred to himself as Mr.Obu but didn’t go into any more detail and soon he answered telling me to come as soon as I could for the job.

“Well… I better prepare myself!”

***

An hour later I was in front of the little bookstore in the best outfit I could gather and ready for the interview. 

“You can do it. It’s not your first interview.” I told myself in an attempt to find some sort of reassurance.

As soon as I entered the store, the scent of impressions and old books filled my nostrils. It reminded me of simpler times when I would always hang out in the huge library of the family home. The bookstore was very small, even smaller than what I had expected. Only a few shelves populated the middle of the store and all the walls were covered with more shelves with panels describing the genre of each section. The additional shelves on the walls made it feel cramped and small but somewhat cozy.

“Hello? Anybody here?” I asked in the darkness of the dimly lit store.

“You can come in the back young man.” the voice of the old man answered from the back store.

I walked slowly into the back of the store while still taking in the sights of this mysterious little bookstore and soon, I found myself in front of the owner of this treasure trove. The first word that came to mind when I saw him was gentle. The man standing in front of me looked to be in his late seventies, his face had been valleyed by the passage of time but his eyes looked as sharp as ever with a light blue tone contrasting greatly with his dark skin tone. He also had a cane by his side, on which he leaned heavily for support. 

“Ok now that you are here, we can start the interview,” the old man said while sitting on a chair and inviting me to do the same.