Analogical Oneshots

[2] Broken Bookshelf Au

T.W. Brief mention of a Panic Attack.

Virgil never really loved his job, but he tolerated it, just to make sure that he had a stable income to sustain his life. He needed the money to pay any bills he had, or to make sure he could fuel his car, and buy food. It wasn't like his job was anything too hard to deal with either, it was mostly the people he dealt with, some could be rather rude, which was why he was pleasantly surprised when he had a slight... misfortune at work.

He was working in the book section of the store, it wasn't too large, but it was comfortable, and had a nice number of books, not to mention a rather large selection of older and newer books. There were hardbacks of any colour along the back wall, going up to about 7ft. The top shelf was too tall for him to reach, but it seemed to remain stocked enough. The very last bookshelf along the back wall was full of recipe books, which somehow never stayed tidy, no matter how much effort he would put into tidying them.

In front of the tall bookshelves holding the hardbacks were a few smaller bookshelves holding paperbacks, kids books, and CDs and DVDs. The children's books were a mess, constantly, but that was to be expected since it was only kids who really went there. The paperbacks remained a comfortable medium, some shelves were tidy, other's were not so tidy, it all depended on the people.

One day, his manager talked to him, and told him they were going to be doing an inventory later that night, which involved going through and counting each piece of merchandise in the whole store, which often took a long time, and the managers often went home around four o'clock in the morning.

In order to make the inventory easier, his manager suggested he make the book area look tidy, and keep the paperbacks and hardbacks separate, and make the cookbooks easier to access. During the conversation, they'd somehow agreed to condense the paperback section slightly, and move the cookbooks to the end bookshelf, instead of having them on the back wall, making there more room for hard backs, since they usually had a lot to go out.

A few hours later, he had emptied the cookbooks off the shelves they were on, refilled the shelf with more books, tidied the rest of the area up, and cleared out the shelves where the cookbooks were going to be moved to.

He moved the cart over to where he needed it to be, in order for him to restock the shelves he'd previously emptied, and looked at what cookbooks he had, in order to figure out how he wanted to shelve them.

After going through a collection of cookbooks, he looked to see he had 3 left, the collection was organised by date, and the remaining three belonged in the middle of the collection. He placed them in the gap, and turned away to look at what he had to put up next, when a crash sounded from behind him.

He spun around, and found two of the shelves broken from the weight of the books. His hands were shaking, matching the pace of his racing heart, due to the scare. He took a deep breath, but continued to stare at the mess in front of him.

He didn't want to find anyone and admit his embarrassment, but he knew he needed to talk to a manager, and get help cleaning it up. He sighed, and turned away, catching his managers eye. They came over, and the two spoke about what happened, and he managed to calm down slightly from the distraction.

He watched as they walked away to get two new shelves, and a customer came over to him, having heard the loud noise, and wanting to make sure he was okay.

"Are you alright?" Virgil looked at him, with his immaculate clothes, slicked back hair, glasses, and overall stunningness.

"Yeah. I uh... I'm fine." He smiled weakly. "Just got a bit startled, I guess."

The handsome stranger smiled at him, and offered him some help, after the manager had come back with the shelves, and cleared away the broken ones.

"That'd be... uh nice..." He sighed, and looked at the pile of books. "This job sucks sometimes..."

"I do not doubt that."

Virgil smiled. "I like working in the silence back here, but it's not always exciting."

"No. I can see why, although the monotony of it all must be relaxing at times."

"It can be, until a panic attack surfaces from nowhere." Virgil smiled a little, but turned away, and put up the new shelves, knowing he needed to tidy up, so he didn't create too much of a blockade.

After an hour, he and the handsome stranger had put everything back in place, and the book area looked neat. Throughout it all, they had spoken about random things, and exchanged numbers, in hopes that they would soon meet for a coffee, and talk some more, because even if they didn't want to admit it, they knew they held some feelings for the other, and it may take a while, but they would work rather well together, but they didn't need to know that, and they were content to be friends for a while.

895 words

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