Hanging Around For Charlotte (prt III)

I wanted to rush to him, wanted the reason for the change in climate. Why so cold? So desperate looking? What chance Love in hell?
I needed to know it all there and then. All the history of yesterday and promises of tomorrow.
Taking a deep breath I had started to walk toward the child when he produced a packet of cigarettes from a pocket in his trousers, took one out, placed it expertly between his lips and sparked up. Right underneath the NO SMOKING sign, paying no attention to my presence.
I watched him inhale his first chug, then looked towrds the girl who was still bowed and weeping.
Then almost as if it were instinct, I retreated and put my head around a shelf as if I were the young lad's look out. The two crab people had disappeard, and I scanned the library to look for the chubby book keeper behind her desk. Nobody, she too had vanished. Then I heard it. The sound of steel being sharpened on stone; it was coming from the back of the building. As I crept closer to the source it grew more and more painful sounding, like a paper cut.
The composer of this whine was no stranger to agony I told myself, coming to a halt near the fire escape.
It was now in front of me but still out of sight. I narrowed my eyes in an attempt to fight an approaching darkness, and there in the rising shadowy clutches of the bookshelves I saw the hooded cowl of Death itself, its back to me. Clinging to one of the steel supports to stop myself falling into the quicksand I was certain was beneath me, I held my breath as if hiding it from the bony harvester a spit away.
I shuffled my feet to turn tail as the chilling whine continued to run along the ancient blade. It was Death's sound! Slowly I edged away back to the lullaby confines of the children's section, careful not to snag a piece of clothing on a shelf.
Ages passed as I fingered my way, title by title along the rows of books. As I got nearer to where the two children sat a strong smell of cigarettes tickled my nose, and I quickly had to stifle a laugh before reaching sight of the pair. The air was thick with smoke, and next to the boy's pin tear on the floor lay his empty packet.
I was about ready to make my presence known to them when the fire alarm burst into life. Dull and intermittent at first but within seconds it wailed throughout the building. I looked wildly about, suddenly feeling a bite colder than envy on my ankles. Glancing down expecting to see Death's scythe lapping at a fatal wound, a reality storm hit me like a punch. No blood, none at all. No Old Man Death, no children. All I saw was water running in hysterics from the tap I must have kicked into life during my dope slumber.
Death's library shattered onto the bath's floor.
Relieved I let the freezing water splash my feet and shins until I'd shaken the last drop of madness out of my head. Stepping out of my temporary casket I heard alarm bells once again, sounding more familiar this time. I sensed a feminine shrill to them, and like an addict hitting a vein I realised: the doorbell!
I took the stairs three to every step, only counting two squelches from my drenched boots as I hit the bottom.
The doorbell stung again firing my heart up into my throat as I jammed the key into the feisty lock and screwed it. Yanking my door open I came face to face with an unwelcome explosion that knocked me backward.
I kicked at the flames which crept over my doorstep, seething to my feet. Through the acrid yellow I saw a lone figure, ghostly and macabre, but in the same instant, beautiful and Love-you-so.
Offering a hand I mouthed a secret pledge. And in seconds I was where I always belonged...