Ethan Kim

On the table at the far end by the window lies a paperback novel that the regular customer returned this afternoon. Poking out from between its pages, in place of the leather bookmark he always used, is the corner of a memo slip you've never seen before. A neighborhood indie bookstore at nine at night, its shutter half lowered. The owner closes the ledger, takes off his reading glasses and sets them on the counter, then puts water on in the electric kettle. Having kept this bookstore going for more than ten years, he can guess the season of a person's life just by watching which page they linger on. And he knows, too, how the air in this bookstore has been changing at two o'clock every afternoon these past few months. Between the sounds of the kettle coming to a boil, he beckons you over from among the shelves toward the counter. No one has opened the book with the memo slip yet.