Life, actually…

.

LONG TIME AGO SEEMS LIKE YESTERDAY

.

A mere 65 years ago, I am speeding West on 15th Street atop a thin-wheeled second-hand chipped-paint bicycle. My mission is to get to the Downtown county library and back in time for family supper on Eastwood Avenue.

.

Let me back up here and caulk in a few missing details.

.

“Speeding” means the bicycle wobbles along at maybe three miles per hour. But to the oh-so-young me, the breeze I’m making feels like racing the wind.

.

Traveling West on 15th means jumping curbs. Squiggling over multiple railroad tracks. Bumping around sidewalk-less mounds of clay and grass and dust. Running red lights in order to maintain forward momentum.

.

“Back in time for family supper” means arriving home just as my stomach starts to grumble. I don’t have a timepiece. And since I’m safely shrouded within my hometown, I don’t need directions in order to find library or bungalow. I don’t need a compass to tell me which way is West.

.

These are things I know because of where I’ve lived on Earth the past dozen or so years.

.

And the library. Up till now, the library is my cathedral of books. I know every inch of it.

.

Finally I screech to a halt (at least I pretend to screech). Padlock my bike to a bush (as if anyone would ever steal such a creaky piece of machinery). Tuck my shirttail in (this is a library, you know). Race up the stairs of a re-purposed Victorian house where everything worth reading abounds.

.

I silently tiptoe past the main desk. Past stern no-eye-contact guardians who stamp and process volumes and volumes of inert knowledge and facts.

.

I don’t need no stinkin’ eye contact to enjoy myself in this wonderland. I just need my friends the books. My friends the maps. My friends the periodicals. My friend the Silence.

.

I scan past titled spines, rows of beckoning subjects. Past the gaps between, where temporary adoptions have occurred.

.

And suddenly it dawns upon me that I have just about completed my so-far-lifelong project: I have read and cherished every book that I care to read and cherish.

.

There is nothing new on the shelves between the bookends.

.

I still have time to re-visit old favorites. I brush fingers past them one more time. I inhale the unique fragrance of all future and past book cathedrals.

.

I check out one last title to take home. To read flashlit under quilts tonight.

.

I ponder future prospects.

.

As I pedal eastward toward home for a round of corn-on-the-cob-and-cornbread vittles, I pass by the strip mall near Eastwood Park. Wait—the  drugstore has rotating metal racks filled with paperback books. Magazines abound nearby.

.

Instead of borrowing and returning books, maybe I can purchase the books I desire! They are only 25 cents and 35 cents each. And the cover art is dynamic and compelling. And I can keep rather than sadly part with them.

.

But I have no job. Maybe an occasional allowance. Where will I find the cash needed to start feeding my booklust?

.

Hmmm…

.

I know! Mother provides lunch money and bus fare most weeks.

.

I think. Why eat cafeteria food when I can purchase Food for Thought? Why ride a bus to class when I can walk or bike?

.

I hatch a devious plot

.

© Jim Reed 2022 A.D.