I rounded the corner, my fingers brushing along the fine grain wood. My eager eyes raked the rows of diverse books, some living over my head, though that's not really much of a feat. I was the definition of plain and ordinary, but here I was welcome among the fictional freaks, geeks and outcasts. It was just the books and me. Then it was her.
She rested on the ground, her legs collapsed under her like gravity had enticed her to that position. I couldn't tell how long she'd been there, nor did I really care to know, because in my mind she belonged in that bookstore just as much as each one of those books.
It was delicate, the way she stroked the cover of each book before opening it, feeling the texture of the cover, introducing herself to the story. Each one was a new treasure, just as important to her as if the rest did not exist. With each new book she opened, she was taken to a new world, but not as you or I when we open a book. This was different. It was as if the words floated off the pages and wrapped themselves around her, immersing her completely in some new and nameless magic. Each tale was a new flurry of words, a new expression on her face, a new world to explore. Even though she was physically in front of me, she never dwelt in that tiny bookstore on the corner of 13th street. She was farther away than any mere mortal could ever hope to be.
I read each book that she touched just by looking at her face. Without ever meeting her, I knew that she was one of those people that was in love with words. She was a walking thesaurus, the keeper of all lexicon; the person who knew every possible word for what you were trying to say, but instead would watch you struggle and then think of every word to define you in that moment. She chose the words she spoke by how they taste. Intoxicated by the way arrangements of consonants and vowels danced in her mouth, puffed up her cheeks and rolled off her tongue like a crested wave. She would never love anything else so much as that.
Her elegant hands slid a book back into its home on the shelf, and her eyes drifted up to find me, watching her. She wasn't scared or apprehensive or embarrassed. In her eyes I saw all the lives she has lived and deaths she has died. Physically, she couldn't be any older than twenty one, but her eyes held a hundred years of joy and sorrow. Her gaze expressed an indescribable hope and unquenchable desire to explore. In that single moment I knew she was the kind of person who looked at a seed and saw a flower.
A smile rounded her cheeks. "Hi," she said softly. But the way she said it made it more than a word. It was an experience contained in two letters. In a single moment, I was closer to her than I had ever been to anyone. My overwhelming desire in that moment was to let her take me to all the worlds she lives in.
Then I blinked, and in the darkness behind my eyelids, I saw more light then could ever exist in one space. All of my biggest dreams and deepest wishes danced in that overwhelming glow. I didn't want it to end. And it didn't. When I opened my eyes, the light slowly faded to a bearable intensity, until all that I could see was her. The bookstore was gone. As far as I could tell, there wasn't even a floor underneath my feet.
Her eyes enticed me, begging me to enter the world she created, just for me it seemed. She turned and glided away, never turning to check if I was following, because she knew I was. And she led me home.
