So engrossed was he in the game, he didn’t acknowledge anyone who walked in. No “welcome to abraham’s” in a robotic stupid voice, however he knew when you were hovering close, to pay for something you found in the tight stacks, which grew from floor to ceiling in the rear of the shop. It was a shop not a store, because it was small, about the size of a double garage in the 1960’s. It smelled of dust, old paper and coffee. The fresh coffee was bitter, but the books absorbed the acrid hard edge of those odours, so now it was a mellow smell, like old cigars and sugar. It was the smell of timelessness.