In a little bookstore on a corner downtown (I can’t say which one but there is a muted and pleasant sounding bell over the door, dinging for each soul through) a young woman walked up and asked,
“Where is the Dystopian section?”
I was just back there but I don’t work here so I kept my mouth shut and stiffened because I’m practiced and I didn’t want to give myself away, just as Cheap Trick advised. I was way too close to the crime this time.
“Back of aisle five,” said the clerk with a nod that way.
It is the darkest corner in the stacks but there is a handsome reading chair and a lamp with a tasseled silk & velvet shade.
The clerk handed me my receipt with two books and change. One was a find and one was gift.
Sometimes, when I can, I leave a book on the shelf instead of an empty space. Sometimes I also return more books to the library than I checked out. A few of my best friends, ones who haven’t died already and even one who did, said,
“You should know what it feels like to have your books on the shelves.”
And now I say, “Oh, but I do.”
You may find me in Fiction, Poetry, or Lost & Found.