First Edition (Short Story)

Part 3 Rediscoverimg

After about the hundredth time of going back and forth from the reading chair in his study to every single bookshelf in his library, Jacob decided to give up once again. He chalked it up to paranoia of possibly missing out on some rare and secret unknown book that might have turned out to be the Holy Grail for collectors. Not only would you get bragging rights if you sought out and found this magical book, you would also possibly become a hell of alot more richer as well.

As Jacob was thinking that scenario over and over in his head, his eyes suddenly moved and focused on the furthest , lowest and last book shelf that was located on the very bottom that always got overlooked and eventually forgotten over time. It was his junk shelf that he had forgotten he had from years ago. Jacob had used that space for random books, papers, magazines and some toy collectibles. It was also a graveyard for old folders from high school that contained old sheet music, lyrics and the occasional poem from when he was testing out his writing skills. It was basically a hoarder's hidden treasure chest. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Lysol!

Cursed with OCD Jacob realized that he couldn't leave that last shelf all in disarray. He needed to go through it and get rid of the clutter and properly store what was worth keeping. He tried to remember what he had stashed away mamy, many years ago. He took a longing look at that bottom shelf to start mentally preparing and organizing what he could immediately see at the moment. There were about six folders full to bursting with loose papers and pages out of what looked like guitar magazines. He also saw three show boxes that were missing the box tops so some of the contents were visible at first glance. This was going to take a good while.

Jacob decided to clear away all of the collectible toy clutter first so there was better access and space to work with. He remembered he had some empty cardboard boxes stored in the garage. He would use these for the toy collectibles. Grabbing a couple of good sized boxes he started back towards the library. He was starting to dread going through all of those folders that contained hundreds of loose papers, pages and college ruled notebooks that contained god knows what. Even though he knew that this was going to be a massive project he couldn't help wonder what he might come across or discover. Christmas may have come early this year. He got giddy at the thought. Jacob did not like feeling giddy. Not at all. He had built things up in the past with unrealistic expectations and more often than not sorely disappointed with the end results.

Walking into the library study he paused. Most of his things from high school had been packed away and in storage. He couldn't help wonder why he never got around to finishing this last shelf. All of those years without cleaning or organizing this one shelf didn't make sense to Jacob. Although, most of us only clean what's at eye level, it's only human nature unless you were in a profession that was trained to look up and dowm as well. It was also wierd because Jacob was a neat freak with OCD who needed consistent organization otherwise he would probably lose his mind. Strange that he had overlooked this little nook fot so many years. Collecting and storing as many books as he had must've made him a little 'shelf blind' and more so just left him flat out 'shelfish'. I thank you, haha.

He would start on the de-cluttering later on; for now, he wanted to try to figure out what book he needed in order to completely satisfy his literary heart. He went through the card catalog in his head starting with the most famous or most sought after first editions or rare printings of complete collections of short stories and or poems. He came across Sickens, Poe, Dantê, Tolkien, Lovecraft, Orwell, Twain, Chaucer, Milton and Jane Austin. According to his memory, He had already acquired editions for each of these authors that were valuable to him, maybe not always valuable in the sense of money or being worth a lot, but special to him for many other reasons deemed personal. In actuality most of them were worth a few dollars to donuts, he had found many gems hiding in plain sight to the layman or inexperienced book buyer.

He had gotten a knack for choosing what stores to go hunting after what most people liked to call ' old books?that nobody was interested in anymore'. Fortunately not eveyone had this blind mentality about the classics. What these poor, unfortunate, ignorant souls didn't know was the true meaning of classic literature and why they have stood the test of time. In a nutshell, a classic is a book that has never finished saying what it had to say so they live on perpetually, generation to generation, classroom to classroom, parent to child. Classic novels seemed to have had more integrity and real life lessons in them than the newer books after the turn of the 20th century. In a sense, they were more honest in the writing hence making the author more vulnerable and more relatable. It was like tough love more than anything else I could say.