Between the shelves Thanos Kalamidas Between the shelves I’m not a romantic. I shelve books. I catalogue the heartbreak of others. Thanos Kalamidas Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Between the shelves Between the shelves Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Between the shelves T hey say love arrives like lightning, but in my case, it came on cream-colored stationery with ink that smelled faintly of cologne and the kind of handwriting that made you think the writer smoked too much and stared at rainy win- dows. I’m not a romantic. I shelve books. I catalogue the heartbreak of others, watch couples kiss over F. Scott Fitzgerald and then drift apart by the Hemingway section a month later. That’s how I knew love didn’t last. It just passed through like a late patron, grateful, distracted, and always looking for something they’d never return. But then came the letters. * * * * * Thanos Kalamidas The first one was tucked into The Maltese Falcon Appropriate. The kind of noir crap I read on rainy nights while pretending I wasn’t lonely in an apart- ment that smelled of old coffee and resignation. It said: “Your eyes, like forgotten verses, haunt me between aisles. I see you, even when you don’t see me. Would you believe me if I told you I’ve never missed a Mon- day at the library since you arrived?” No name. Just a pressed sprig of lavender. A flower no one asks for unless they’ve been hurt by someone polite. I read it three times, then once more for the ache it left behind. * * * * * I’m Delia Marrone. My mother calls me dolce , sweet. I guess she’d be heartbroken to learn her daughter’s sweetness dried up by twenty-nine and was replaced with dust and doubt. I don’t talk much. Not because I don’t have anything to say, just that people rarely deserve the truth. But this letter... it cut through something calcified inside me. I started watching. Between the shelves A tall man with a trench coat and unreadable eyes? A timid teacher who always checked out love stories but never smiled? Was it the man with ink-stained fingers who asked for rare poetry volumes like he was searching for buried treasure? Hell, it could’ve been Mrs. Farnsworth from circu- lation, she always did have a flair for calligraphy. * * * * * Two weeks later, the second letter came. This one slid into a returned copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice, how’s that for foreshadowing? “Your silence is a poem I want to read backwards, slowly, until I understand every pause. I know you’re watching now. Good. Let’s dance in the shadows a little longer. The world is too bright for what I feel for you.” Signed with a lipstick kiss in a shade that made my neck warm. I wore a tighter bun the next day. A sharper blouse. Just in case. That’s how we fool ourselves, dressing for the attention we pretend we don’t want. Thanos Kalamidas * * * * * There’s a noir sort of truth that seeps into your life when you’re alone too long. Every act becomes a clue. Every gaze becomes a threat or a promise. I wasn’t sure which I wanted more. A man started showing up. I didn’t catch his name. He always checked out one book: The Godfather . And every time, he asked, “You believe love is a weakness, Miss Marrone?” I told him, “Only when you can’t walk away from it.” He smiled, slow and tired, like a man who’d walked away once and regretted it every day since. * * * * * I found the third letter inside Wuthering Heights Cliché? Maybe. But pain ages well in fiction. “Sometimes I want to speak to you. Tell you that your quiet is the loudest sound in my world. But what if I ruin it? What if knowing me breaks the spell?” It was the first time I cried since my father died. Between the shelves That’s the power of words when they’re pointed straight at your scars. I was falling. For a ghost. * * * * * A week passed. Then two. Nothing. Silence. The kind that curdles in your stomach and makes you curse yourself for believing in mystery, in desire, in damn handwritten hope. I confronted the man with The Godfather “You stop writing?” I asked, hands trembling like I’d swallowed electricity. He looked at me like I’d offered him mercy. “I nev- er started.” That night, I burned lavender in my sink and cursed every poet who ever taught me to dream. * * * * * Then, one rainy evening, I found the last letter. It wasn’t hidden. It was waiting on my desk, bold and deliberate. Thanos Kalamidas “I watched you read my words like they were rosary beads. I watched you search the crowd, like you were hoping the face behind them would disappoint you, so you could stay safe in wanting. But I’m done hiding. Tonight. 8 PM. Aisle 14. Mystery section. You de- serve truth. Even if it breaks us.” * * * * * I stood in front of the mirror at 7:50, lipstick trem- bling in my hand. I’d chosen red. Not because I was brave, but because cowards wear color too, and sometimes we have to fake fire when all we feel is fog. 8:01 PM. I walked between shelves of forgotten crimes and unsolved hearts. He stood there. Holding a book. Not The Godfa- ther . But Great Expectations . And when he saw me, he whispered, “You came.” And I, too afraid to say anything soft, said the only thing I could. “You picked the wrong Dickens.” He grinned. “Maybe. Or maybe I always hoped for something tragic that turns out beautiful.” Between the shelves I touched the lapel of his coat. It was warm. Real. I wasn’t in a story anymore. I was in it. * * * * * We sat in the back, behind a stack of returns. He took my hand. It wasn’t perfect, his fingers were cal- loused, a little ink-stained. The kind of hand that could build something or bury it. “I’ve been coming here for months,” he said. “I fell in love before I knew your name. You shelved The Long Goodbye and hummed Sinatra under your breath. You scratched behind your ear when you were anxious. You saved broken spines like they were people.” I whispered, “I am broken spine.” He kissed me, then. Gently. Like punctuation. Like a comma in the middle of a sentence he never want- ed to end. * * * * * Somewhere, a clock struck nine. Outside, the world stayed busy. But inside that library, time folded like origami. Thanos Kalamidas Maybe this wouldn’t last. Maybe tomorrow he’d vanish like a footnote in someone else’s chapter. But tonight, in the hush of paper and possibility, I was no longer a lonely librarian. I was the woman who was found. The End Between the shelves Between the shelves Thanos Kalamidas Ovi eBook Publishing 2025 Ovi magazine Design: Thanos Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas Between the shelves I’m not a romantic. I shelve books. I catalogue the heartbreak of others. Thanos Kalamidas , a multipublished writer, cartoonist and illustrator; born and grew up in a picturesque neighbourhood on the moun- tainside of Hymettus in Athens, Greece. Then his life took him to Berlin, Germany and to London, UK for studies. After a brief stay in Yorkshire he moved his life to Paris, France while working in Tokyo, Japan and in Cape Town, South Africa. In the last 25 years he became a permanent Scandinavian resident and recently, in his glorious sixth de- cade, he moved to a scenic village in the Växjö area.