There's an ragged copy of Jane Eyre in the library. The book was bought for a classroom, one of a set for the junior class for Franklin High School, but somehow this one ended up alone in the public library of a town with no schools called Franklin.
The book is well-worn and, well, scruffy. Its pages are yellowed brown, well-associated with the musty smell of an old library. It's my favorite, though. Out of the years I've worked at the library, and out of the thousands of books I've ever seen, this is the one I keep coming back to. Every time I read it, the story changes. And not because I see the characters in a new light, or because I understand a motive better, but because of the actual fact that every time I open the book, there's a new story waiting for me.
This story, written in the margins of Charlotte Bronte's novel, writes with two hands. The first uses a blue pen that leaks occasionally; the second, a dull No. 2 pencil that slants backwards: that writer is clearly left-handed. The pen writes in scratchy, thick penmanship. The pencil has perfect grammar and spelling and smeared handwriting.
It's clear the two don't know each other from their banter, but if they ever were to meet, they would either argue until they were blue in the face, or fall over laughing. They are dynamic characters, so life-like they seem imagined.
Every day, they talk of new things. I don't know who they are, but I don't mind the uncertainty. Far from it; it lends to the enjoyment of the story. They must find it pleasant as well. Why else would they have continued their "conversations"? It's not as if they talk of inappropriate things. The book is never hidden, insofar as placing it under a pile of books isn't concealment.
They are so different. Where else could these two meet but in the margins?
YOU ARE READING
Meeting in the Margins
Short StoryCassidy and Drex are strangers. They've never met, they don't know the other's last names, and they don't know the other's age. But they share one thing in common. They converse through the pages of an English classic at the town library. The pair's...
