The Gifts of Midnight Blue
The wall of sound, of shrieks, tweets, and squawks, had subsided for the day. Alex was quite accustom to the racket but relished these gentle pauses just before closing. Before he headed home for the day, his pet store would flip from chaotic pheromone-fueled menagerie to a personal oasis where he could get lost in a musty old book, such as Beowulf or The Odyssey.