Chapter 5

"Haaa..." I sighed in dissatisfication.

"What am I even doing here at this hour?"

"Time to go back..."

As soon as I stood up, I slowly tilted my head towards the door and began walking towards it.

"Wait... better put the novels back into their shelf..."

Even though my reason for living as a living being was steadily vanishing, my tidy and neat nature, to speak my core, was still there.

A cleaning frenzy?

I do not know nor do I care how people use to call this.

A doctor once told me I had OCD - obsessive-compulsive disorder - or something.

So it's not like I wanted to put these books back on the shelf...

...maybe more like a sort of necessity?

Anyways...now you know why a useless case of a human, like me, would insist to simply put some novels back on a shelf.

One after another.

I took a book and put it back on its shelf.

A total of 5 novels, as I couldn't decide which one to read.

My hand reached out for the last one and put it on the shelf.

Next to it a book, which surely did not belong in the drama section.

"Fairy tales and lullabies"

A simple title quickly gives an idea of what the book's content is.

"Might as well read it..." instinctively I took it and started to scroll through its pages.

As I quickly reached its end I saw a title that looked familiar to me.

"Little Woodpecker"

I slowly continued to read the page's content.

"- a lullaby by Alice Afteragor"

"..."

Motionless and inert, completely paralyzed, I stood there.

"....."

Looking at the author's name, a drop of water dropped right next to it.

"Eh-Ehem"

As soon as I realized that someone was behind me, I snapped out of my state of pure immobility.

"Could you please get out? It's already too late for a patient to be still awake... Go to your room and get some sleep!"

I looked where the female voice came from.

It was the librarian.

"Oh..yeah...Uhm-I..." With my still damp eyes, I tried to respond.

"Take this with you! Barely anyone comes here anymore, so it's fine"

"Uhm.. what?" I reluctantly gave her an answer.

I was visibly confused...maybe something like perplexed is better suited.

"In your Hands...The book! What else?" she promptly replied.

"Ah yeah sure...but I don't nee-"

I couldn't even finish my sentence when I was pushed out of the library.

"Now get goin' already! I wanna go home to my family too, y'know?"

As soon as she said that I was kicked out of the library and was standing in the hallway.

A cold and dark Hallway.

I looked to the right, then to the left.

I did not see a single nurse nor a doctor.

Not even a single noise was audible in the hallway I was standing.

It felt like the whole hospital was abandoned.

As if no one was there.

No one but me.

I glanced down at my hands and realized I was still holding the book.

"Haaa...What should with this one now..."

"..."

"Whatever...I'll just take it to my room and bring it back any time soon..."

"...not like I need it anyway.."

As soon as these words softly passed my lips, a loud knock on glass from behind scared me and I jumped up.

"It scared the shit out of me"

"I nearly pissed myself"

These are just some of the many ways to describe how I felt.

It is certain to say that I thought I was haunted or something like this.

And well nowadays I would still hold on to that.

I mean the librarian was really scary after all.

"Are you deaf or somethin'?" she asked with an annoyed tone of voice.

"Get goin' for real now! Or else I'll call the guards! That ain't gonna be funny, y'know?"

I looked at her with my completely white-colored face, as if I have seen some sort of demon or ghost.

"Uhmmm...You okay?", she asked out of concern.

"Ye-Yeah, I am", I stuttered a little and gave her a delicate smile. "You just scared me a little, Miss"

"Is-Is that so?"

"Yeah...Then I'll be going now..."

"Take care", she told me as I casually went back to my room.

***

I looked out of the window before entering my room and the church's clocktower bell.

The hour and minute hands aligned at the same spot.

-- 00:00 --

That was the time the clock was showing.

"Man it sure is late," I thought to myself.

Entering the room, still with the book the lady gave me, I lay down on my bed.

It's not like I was exhausted.

I slept some time in the library, after all.

In fact, I was very awake and not tired at all.

As follows, I couldn't get any sleep.

I tried, but it was completely futile.

Sometimes when I read something, my eyes get heavy and I automatically sleep.

Even though I don't want to.

It seems to be an automatic mechanism in my body.

Looking to the right, I noticed the book on my bedside table.

"Maybe I can benefit from this book after all..."

And truth to be told, I really did.

Much more than I hoped I would.

Even up until today I ask myself what would have happened if I didn't read that book?

What would have happened if I didn't get completely emerged in reading these lullabies and fairy tales, which some of them were written by my mother...

Reading these phrases, I completely forgot my surroundings, and moreover, my perception of time was more than blurry.

But what made actually me lose the perception of my ambiance, weren't just the various interesting stories nor were it the little illustrations that engraved after each adventurous story.

As a matter of fact, I can say no.

It was something of much deeper meaning and nature, but still very simple.

The sheer flood of emotions, that flew through my body, made me go back to a dream with my mother as if I was teleported back to our past and it ends as soon as I finished the story.

Like a drug addict, I wanted more, more of reminiscing the past, because as soon as I woke up from that dream I was once again alone in that quiet and empty room.

I knew I should have stopped, waking up in hell every time I finish a story, my mother once sang for me was unbearable,...

...but I just couldn't.

I smiled, I cried, I laughed...my emotions knew no boundary.

Suddenly I heard the clocktower striking, and I immediately snapped out of my pitiful state.

"DUNG"

The first strike.

The strike, that made me snap out.

"DONGGG"

The second strike.

A much darker tone, than the first one, which kept on ringing afterward and slowly vanishing.

I looked out of the window, feeling nothing.

But I felt my tears slowly flowing down my cheeks.

"Sighhhh...", I murmured "When the hell did it become 02:00 a.m?"

I took a more relaxing position on my bed and put my arms on my head, crossing both my eyes.

"S-So Pathetic", squinting and crying I kept humming "I-I'm so so pathetic...SO PATHETIC"

I tried to get some sleep, to rest my mind or whatever I was thinking could relieve me from this.

As expected, I couldn't sleep.

There was no way I could sleep.

After already in agreement with myself that I would catch no sleep, I just kept staring at the church tower and hoping the clock would move faster.

***

I noticed that there was something in the faint distance...

... a voice?

I thought I was once again hallucinating, so I didn't pay much attention to it.

But I realized that it was real and then I started to eavesdrop.

"One... little... pecker"

I couldn't really understand anything, in particular, because it was so distant, but it sounded familiar.

"...day... pecking... holes"

" Ruining...the... tree..."

I wanted to know who was singing at such an hour and what the person was singing.

Thus, I stepped out of my room and sneaky approached the voice's direction.

The nearer I came, the more clearer it was to understand the lyrics.

"Oh, sad little woodpecker"

I immediately recognized what this female voice was singing.

There is no way I could have not recognized it, after all, it was the lullaby my mom sang to me every night before I went to sleep.

As I slowly came closer, I distinguished a Piano in the background.

"Poisonous tears, shining brightly, as they stream down your cheeks"

The room where the voice came from, was coming closer and I decided to see who was behind this beautiful voice, which I have fallen in love with only hearing tiny bits of it.

I entered the room and there she was.

Sitting in front of the piano.

Carefully playing with her slim fingers.

The phantom girl, who I've been looking for.

Exactly this same girl, who was constantly crossing my mind for days, was sitting right there on a piano and singing something so dear to me.

And truth to be told...

...she looked even more beautiful than the last time I have seen her.

As if I was starring at a majestic Queen, whose eyes were sparkling and shining bright in the moonlight.

A sight of once in a Lifetime.

It Truly was...

...a sight I will have never forgotten for the rest of my humble life.