This post is part of StoryADay May (https://storyaday.org/) #StoryADay #StoryADayMay @storyadaymay #freeshortstory #HollyJahangiri #Llannonn @hjahangiri.author

For those who don’t know, years and years ago, I wrote a novel (currently out of print) set on Llannonn, a planet where courtesy is literally the law. When I went on a blog book tour for the novel, I ran a contest for naming a character in a short story set in the same world. Fellow writer Holly Jahangiri (the real one) was such a determined contestant, I named a character after her, too. That character commandeered the story, and I’ve been writing about her ever since.

I write a Holly story on the Sundays of Story A Day May.

Holly Jahangiri (the fictional one) becomes, is, and retires as a Librarian at a library for living books. It seems that somebody on Llannonn read Fahrenheit 451 and decided a library of people who recite books they’ve memorized was a great idea. Typically for Llannonn, they officialized it. Becoming a living book is now a respectable career, provided you can get a gig in a library.

Holly Meets Mam Part 1

by Marian Allen

The time had come.

High Head Librarian Holly Jahangiri and Detective Chief Inspector of Council City Pel Darzin were ready to finalize their marriage contract. Although the law of Llannonn forbade such contracts to run for longer than five years, many couples fully intended to re-up indefinitely. Some actually did.

Darzin, ever the romantic (he did, after all, maintain, contrary to all evidence, that the entirety of the law could be enforced and upheld) believed this union would stand the test of time. Holly, eyes as clear as only a Librarian’s eyes could be, doubted it, but was willing to give it a jolly good try.

So this day had arrived: the day when The Party of the First Part (Darzin) took The Party of the Second Part (Holly) to meet his mother.

She had already met his father, and she had found him to be one of those people who are warm and friendly to their son’s friends but cool and distant to their son. She saw through him, he saw her see through him, and the meeting had seemed much longer for all three of them than it had actually been.

“Mam is different,” Darzin assured her as he picked her up from her residence at Council City’s Living Library, Main Branch. “I think you and she will like each other.”

Holly was willing. She approached new acquaintances as she did new books (which, in her case, were often the same thing): Willing but cautious. You can’t judge a book by its clothing, nor a mother by what her son thinks of her.

As Darzin’s pedicar (which he insisted on pedaling solo, promising with unaccustomed jocularity that she could pedal solo if she wanted to when she took him to see her mother – not likely, since Holly’s mother lived deep in the hinterlands of Meadow of Flowers province.

Darzin’s mother, as he had already told Holly, lived deep in the less desirable real estate quarter of Council City. The buildings around them became smaller, high-rise condominiums giving way to once-grand single dwellings subdivided into interestingly configured apartments, then to shabby two-story single occupancy homes, then astonishingly pristine one-story houses separated by trim strips of grass and fronted by vibrant flowers and the occasional whimsical lawn ornament.

Darzin pulled the pedicar up next to one such house. In its yard was a half-size pratty (looking, a human would say, like a sheep with a long neck) dressed in a pink tutu and a tiara.

“You and Mam have a lot in common,” Darzin said, nodding toward the pratty. “She loves Earth culture, too.”

For a given value of “culture”, Holly thought. In practice for her coming marriage, she didn’t say it out loud.

As they approached the house, the front door opened and a tall, plump woman dressed in a starched, pressed tunic flung open the door and threw her arms around Darzin, hugging him until he squeaked and landing a barrage of kisses on his cheek.

“There’s my lawman,” the woman said, when her lips were free. “There’s my pillar of the community!”

Her smile dropped as she turned a calculating stare on Holly.

Here it comes. Not good enough for her darling boy.

“Mam, this is Holly.” Darzin presented Holly as if she were a commendation for heroism.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Mam Darzin, hooking thumbs with Holly. Nodding to Holly’s trademark purple feather boa, she said, “Nice drape.”

“Thank you,” said Holly. “Nice tunic.”

“Brand new for the occasion,” said Mam. Then, as if not saying the words felt too unnatural, she said, “I got it on sale for half price at Bagrat’s Emporium downtown. The big Bagrat’s. Their prices are so high — “

Holly joined her as she said, “But when they do have a sale…!”

Darzin could almost see the chalkboard over his mother’s head with a big, thick mark in the YES column.

To be continued….

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: Holly and Mother’s Day

MA