Another evening working on ancient texts, his ‘hobby’ turned job that he has been doing for the last 20 some odd years. No one else was going to do it, and no one else has done it. Since they were written they sat untouched begging to be read and once he learned the languages that were scrawled across their pages, his hands worked delicately against their aged surfaces to open them up and decipher their secrets. He may be one of the papas who was rather rough around the edges, one who had a mean bite to him, but his hands knew when to be gentle and when to be firm.

Pinned out across a board with the corners clipped down, an old scroll of faded, dense paper with exaggerated cursive writing sat under the light of his lamp. In one hand, a pencil rested in his grip as it hovered over the pages of his cloth bound notebook, the other hand floating across the scroll as he read and reread the same line to make sure he did not miss the translation. Most of the lights in the room had been dimmed, shrouding him in the low amber glow of the old sconces that lined his walls. The glasses that sat across the bridge of his nose, reflected the light from his computer screen that was lit up with the most recent completed translation he did. Across the document were notes from a professor at the university confirming his work and making comments about possible duel meanings in the work.

Next to him on the desk, away from the notebook, was a crystal glass with two fingers of whiskey sat in the bottom. The amber liquor had been refilled twice through out the evening, his decanter of choice sitting on the corner table across the office where his other various bottles sat. The room itself held the warm scent of barrel aged whiskey, aging papers and tobacco smoke that had been aired out from the open window, all which was lingering beneath the noir cologne that followed the man who sat behind the desk in his black collared, silk waistcoat.