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It wasn’t as if Vitruvius had anything better to do, and his chances of getting more of those lovely kisses were improved if he behaved himself.
Yes, we can talk.
“Okay, great.” Clancy smiled, and he picked up the pen and paper. “Right this way, please.” He headed to the living room. He had to move more books off the couch to make room to sit down.
Vitruvius smiled as Clancy made room for both of them. It wasn’t as if he actually needed a space to sit, but it was sweet.
Clancy put the pen and paper down beside him, saying, “So, hi, my name is Clancy Duvall. I like to restore books, I’m an Aries, single, and bisexual. You?”
Vitruvius, dead, not sure, very single because I am dead, and I believe I fancied men.
“That was probably hard back then, right?” Clancy paused. “Wait, how long have you been in that book?”
I’m… not sure. I’m afraid I don’t recall much. What I do remember doesn’t always make sense.
Vitruvius paused to turn the paper over to keep going.
Or it does not agree with something else.
“Like you remember something happening two different ways?”
Yes.
“Did you drink when you were alive?”
I suppose. Why?
Clancy smirked. “Sometimes your brain can have two different versions of the same event. I had one night years ago where I swear I went right to bed and passed out. Turns out, I was quite the party animal and stayed up all night dancing. Didn’t believe my friends until I saw pictures. While I still remember going to sleep like I thought I did, sometimes I remember the dancing now too.”
You think I got drunk and gave myself a false memory?
Vitruvius drew an angry frowny face.
“Hey, hey, I don’t know.” Clancy held up his hands. “I’m just saying maybe being dead is like being drunk. Time gets all weird, you lose bits of yourself, whatever. What exactly is it you’re having trouble remembering?”
Everything.
“Well, why don’t you start with what you do remember?”
The book. I remember buying the book.
They talked until the pad of paper was full and Clancy got another one. Vitruvius told him every detail of the book in its former glory and the shop he bought it from, right down to the color of the horses pulling the carriage he took to go home. They deduced that he was probably rich, white, and in his early twenties. He had a faint recollection of World War I but not World War II, so Clancy hypothesized that whatever had happened to Vitruvius took place before 1941.
Vitruvius explained his conflicting memory with buying the book a second time, and he wasn’t able to recall as much detail as the first time except there was a car honking outside the shop. It frustrated him that he couldn’t remember more, but then Clancy got excited.
“I bet I know what happened!” Clancy declared. “I’ve cracked the case!”
What?
“Okay, so, you’re a young man. You buy the book in 1906. You keep it for a while, but, ha ha, you lose it.” Clancy beamed. “Being the rich man you are, you probably offer a reward for it. Maybe it meant a lot to you, it could have been sentimental, whatever, but the point is that you lost it and you wanted it back. You put up a reward for its safe return and when someone comes to collect, you want to know exactly where they got it from. So, you make them tell you all about the shop and the car outside to make sure they really found it in a bookstore and didn’t steal it!”
Vitruvius laughed.
“I swear I just heard you laugh at me.”
I did because that’s ridiculous.
“What?” Clancy grinned. “I thought it was pretty good!”
