[center][img]http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/614617/Guy+Berryman.jpg[/img]
[url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/8858/posts/ooc?page=2#post-181794]Alexander Dorene[/url]

[i]Boreas, the north wind, is perhaps the most important of all winds. At Athens this a cold, boisterous wind from the mountains of Thrace. The noise of the gusts is so loud that the Greek sculptor symbolized the tumult by placing a conch shell in the mouth of Boreas. His modern namesake, the Bora of the Adriatic, is the same noisy, blustering, col…….[/i][/center]

A sudden crash from outside shattered Alexander’s concentration. He looked around the bookstore, as if expecting see the culprit standing right in front of him, but the store was still empty, just as it had been all day. Alexander looked up at the clock and let out a small sigh, closing time. He closed the book he had just started and stood slowly, stretching his arms back behinds his neck and shifting his head from side to side. [i]Not a single customer.[/i] He thought, bitterly. 

Usually the store managed to get at least a couple of customers during the day. There were a few regulars that Alexander could count on seeing a couple of times a week at least. But lately… Alexander shook his head and grabbed the book he had been reading, placing it back on the shelf where it belonged. He emptied the cash register and placed the money back in the safe. Really, this should have been the manager’s job, but the manager rarely stepped foot in the bookstore once a week, leaving Alexander to do all of the work. 

It’s not like he didn’t like his job, he loved book s and being surrounded by them all day was pleasant enough. Alexander simply hated the fact that the store was going under. The owner was a sweet older lady who loved books. She had been in charge back when Alexander had first started working there, and the bookstore had flourished. But her health was failing her, and she simply couldn’t run the store anymore, so she had placed her grandson in charge. 

Alexander’s face soured a little just at the thought of the little brat. It was his fault the business was failing. He couldn’t have cared less about the store. All he cared about was the paycheck he got each week from his grandmother, a paycheck that he squandered on beer and drugs most of the time. Alexander wasn’t even sure that the kid could read. Any suggestion that Alexander had about how to make the bookstore run smoother or attract more customers was shot down almost out of principle. But for someone who didn’t like to listen to Alexander, he sure didn’t mind leaving him to do all of the work. From open until close Alexander ran the bookstore. He cleaned up, ordered new books, ran the cash register, talked to the customers, and locked everything down at the end of the day. It wasn’t exactly hard work, but a little help from time to time would have been great. Still, Alexander never told the owner of her grandson’s short comings, it would have broken her heart. And despite all of his complaints, he loved being surrounded by books all day. 

Alexander flipped the open sign on the door around so it read ‘Sorry We’re Closed” and locked the door behind him. As he looked down the street he noticed the cause of the racket that had distracted him from his book. Something or someone had managed to knock over a nearby trashcan and dump its contents all over the sidewalk. Alexander looked around; wondering if the culprit was still here, but there was no one in sight. He lifted the trashcan and shook his head at the garbage that was strewn all across the ground. Probably some kids had knocked it over and not bothered to pick up their mess. With a look of resignation, Alexander bent over and began to shovel the trash back into the can. It wasn’t clean work, but he could just let the garbage fly about the city, some animal would probably end up getting sick by eating a month old churro.

 Alexander tilted his head slightly at the sound of some nearby squirrels chattering away at one another. “I hope you know I’m doing this for your sake.” Alexander said, squinting his eyes at the squirrels. The squirrels squeaked some gibberish before running off. Alexander couldn’t help but smile at his own ridiculousness. Talking to squirrels? That was just stupid. Maybe he was lonelier then he thought. 

When he was finished with the trash he walked home casually, his hands shoved in his pockets, sense he hadn’t had a chance to wash them yet. Alexander wasn’t always the most observant person, but even he managed to notice that something strange was going on. Everywhere he looked it seemed he saw some animal or another scurrying about. There had always been animals around; the town wasn’t all that far from the mountains, but now Alexander was seeing animals he has never seen in the city before. None came to close, but it was interesting nonetheless. He couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything about this on the news. He never cared much for the news honestly, it was always so doom and gloom that he found it almost hard to watch. 

Alexander quickly washed his hands once he got back to the apartment and threw a TV dinner into the microwave. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and let out a sigh of relief as he took a sip. Sometimes there was just nothing better than a nice cold beer after a long day of hoping customers would come into the bookstore. He grabbed his food and sat down on the couch, hoping to catch the evening news. Unfortunately he never quite made it. That’s the problem with only drinking one beer after a long day of work. It always made Alexander abnormally tired. He passed out on the couch just minutes before the evening news came on.