Everyday Canvas

Not Yet Written

Prompt: Weave a short story or a poem that takes place inside a bookstore. What kind of encounter between characters seems most tonally or atmospherically natural for a bookstore?

=============

It first started as a thin drizzle. Then thunder came afterward and the sky opened into a downpour. I rushed into the first store to my right, happily glimpsing its maroon and black sign. A sudden spray of wind accompanied me inside.

I stopped short at the entrance and looked around. Wow! A bookstore! This had to be the kind of place I might have dreamed even before I was born. I am only guessing this because when I think of my beginning or rather pre-beginning, nothing takes shape in my mind, except a jumble of words and letters, which is possibly my imagination.

Still, when I dream of an ideal place, I always think of volumes and volumes of books from floor to ceiling, in aisles and aisles inside a building on a large acre or two. This store was such a place but on a smaller scale, yet it spoke to my soul.

Moreover, there, on the midsection, stood a few tables and chairs with a counter offering bagels, donuts, and coffee. I figured I’d ask for coffee first before checking out the books, but the girl at the counter said, “The coffee machine is broken.”

The coffee looked piping hot with steam was rising from it inside the carafe. I pointed to it. “It seems you have coffee, though.”

“First get a book. Then, the machine will be fixed,” she said, looking at me with her slanted green eyes like that of a lizard.

So she wants me to read. How wonderful! Though shabby and small, this bookstore had to be touched by a lofty purpose. It had to be because it had no other cash register, except for the one on the coffee counter, and its customers were sitting on the floor, reading. The only other person in the coffee area was an old man sipping coffee while reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.

What a haven! It was just the place I could live in forever and ever.

“Your book should be on the right side, third row, on the second shelf,” the girl said.

“How do you know which book I am going to…”

She cut me immediately. “It’s the book you haven’t written, yet.”

I looked at her dumbfounded. “Go ahead! Find it. Coffee is free if you can,” she said. "Donuts and bagels, too."

The book I haven’t written yet! My foot!

Suddenly I felt as if I were going to jump out of my skin. “Nev…Never Mind!” I stuttered, stepping backward. A choking fright of an enormous proportion had me in its clutches. I had to get out of there. Something sinister and horrendous lurked about this place.

Then I searched for the door, a way out, but there was no door, no getting out of here. I rushed back and forth among the aisles and aisles of books, but there was no exit in sight. Finally, I crouched down on the worn linoleum floor and sobbed, only to raise my head when someone's shadow fell on me. The old man reading Edith Wharton’s book was bending over me, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“Yours is a case common to all writers,” he said, fixing his gaze on my face. “It is called the book jitters." He paused, casting a glance around the book-filled walls. Then he added, "Find your book. Find yourself. That will be your way out. Your only way out!”

Did I have any other choice?

Do I?