The Bookstore Episode

I surfed through the fiction section at the Crossword. Most of the books that I had read lay there arranged in a perfect array. I searched for the new arrivals. My head hurt as a result of heavy reading the night before and the night before that. The book count had gone up to 11 books that week. I was totally deprived of sleep. No, deprived is not the correct word, I drove my sleep away for the first couple of days and for the next couple, it returned the favor. I found some paperbacks with great reviews by famous news papers written in fancy fonts on their covers. I stacked up three of them and moved towards the chair where I sit daily for the fair part of an hour skimming through my purchases. One of the three books that I got was about a guy who meets this girl at the library. Turns out, they wanted the same book and there was a single copy left. Then they sit together and read it and eventually fall in love.

'A typical love story' I thought at that time. But the thing about the book that attracted me to read it was somehow the fact that I always wanted my love story to start in a library. I always imagined myself falling for someone through the love of books.

With the ticking clock, I felt something bizarre. The words from the book started to seem blurry. I was sure that it was due to the lack of sleep. I felt the wall that I faced, approached nearer every second. I shut the book and held my head in my hands. I could faintly hear the conversations going on at the cashiers' and mixed within that noise I heard a voice coming from a person next to me. I could hardly figure out the words but all I could gather roughly was that the person asked if she could sit next to me. 

I moved my head and pointed towards the seat. She filled in with her stack of books and took a sigh of relief, seemed like she had been carrying that for too long. I didn't realize but I had been looking at her for a better part of a minute. She might have noticed that and said Hi. I returned the courtesy. She stole a glance at the book that I skimmed about 2 minutes ago. The first words out of her mouth were that she too wanted to read that book and couldn't find one. I laughed it off and asked her whether she knew the plot. She was quite aware of it and we both laughed at the common denominator of the story and the reality. We made some small talks and a few jokes.

She had something about her. Her voice was the one that stays in your mind forever. Her jokes were like the ones that I made up in my mind and didn't tell anyone, well there was no one around to tell to. But she was like all my favorite characters from all my favorite novels mixed in one. I could feel my head light and if there'd been a mirror in front of me, I could have seen a spark in my eyes. Such was her influence. A zillion random thoughts wrestled in my mind but the one that I had my focus fixed on was the possibility of the fantasy I had in my mind for a very long time; starting something special in a library. This store was no less than a library.

"What do you say we read it together?" I took a chance, just as the guy in the story took a chance. "Only the first chapter, then I got to go." She smiled. "Okay. Don't blame me if you sit here till the epilogue." I said playfully. I just loved how she smiled at this. We decided that we would read out alternate paragraphs. I started. It was much more fun than I thought. I finished mine swiftly so that I could hear her. I made her read the long ones intentionally, sometimes reading two small ones at a time. At the end of the first chapter, we looked at each other. None of us wanted to stop.