2004-12-09 - 9:05 p.m.
It had been so long since the last time I passed the threshold I forgot, for a spell, where I was. I had no memory of the place, no recollection or reference at all.
There the old man turned slowly to peer over his glasses at his new guest and said "hello" in a voice proper for the keeper of a used bookstore. I wanted to record his voice to remember forever, this bent man, eyes long worn out from reading, reading, reading.
And I walked through the aisles to the back where I expected to find the piles and titles of books familiar, yet never known; I anticipated the leather pig and the steps to the downstairs I never saw, but which I was going to visit this time. The expectation was so vivid and natural that I had to catch my breath bumping into the narrow confines of Romance with an arrow one way and Westerns with an arrow pointing another. Seeing the end of this building I realized I forgot where I was. This was no Dawn Treader, there was no lion, or witch, or wardrobe to take me there; this was no library emptying into another library in another time. It was an ordinary, stuffy, unimaginative collection of old books no one wanted, especially me.
I glanced for a coveted copy of Le Petite Prince then turned, blinking, and bustled from the confines of the store.
