"Rebooked" (221b, Rated G, Holmes Minor Monthly Prompt)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: Rebooked
Author: gardnerhill
Form/Wordcount: 221b
Characters/Pairings: Dr. Watson, OMC
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: Everything has a season – and everyone is Sherlock Holmes in his own specialty.
Author's Notes: For the April 2017 Holmes Minor Monthly Prompt, “Renewal.”

***
Dr. Watson approached the desk. He smiled, almost abashed as if he hadn’t finished a lesson for a stern schoolmaster, and hefted the object in his hand. “For some reason I just wasn’t able to finish this in time.”

“Ah, it’s the weather.”

Watson laughed at the instant diagnosis. “How so?”

“Take it from an old hand at the stacks, sir.” The man smiled and hefted his stamp. “Best time for non-stop bouts of reading is the winter – you’re at home by the lamp staying warm at the fire and all is dark and cold. The only thing that gets you out of your chair is to fetch a cup of tea. But then spring comes, and the days are longer and warmer. The blood stirs, and a body wants to be out and about, walking in the park or through the street in the evening instead of sitting by the fire reading – and when the two weeks are up…”

How absurdly simple.

Watson finished the man’s phrase. “…Why, then, that book you borrowed is due back and you’re only halfway through it instead of finished.”

The librarian beamed. “Put it another way, sir? You’re far from the only one.”

Grinning, the doctor presented his tome to be restamped for another fortnight. But the librarian’s explanation did make him feel better.

Comments

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

What a clever use of the prompt! And I do like the Holmesian quality to your librarian, maybe it's Lomax from The Illustrious Client.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Very likely it was! Possibly this little exchange caused Watson to gift Lomax with a mention in one of his stories.

[debriswoman]

A lovely little exchange and excellent deductions:-)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

As I've said before, everyone in his/her own specialty is a Sherlock Holmes. (Scientists at a Stone Age dig site were perplexed by a polished animal rib, clearly a tool of some sort - till they brought it to modern artisans and a leatherworker immediately identified it as a hide buffer - "We use bone buffers to this day.")

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Excellent explanation, beautifully put.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I liked being able to link one renewal with the other.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I'm rather charmed that you used the library book prompt ^___^ And you managed to use spring as well ^^

That takes me back - actually having to take the book back to the library to get it renewed. I love Watson's mild embarrassment too, at having to make the shameful admission to the librarian ^_^

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember the renew times at the desk in the days when they stamped a card in the library pocket too.