The Dust Jacket Bookstore

 

 I enjoy the squeaky floors of an old bookstore.  There is a much different cadence with shoe squeaks than with the movement of floorboards.  I would further enjoy getting into a conversation with random people, but my conversational skills are sometimes filled with awkward gaps and pauses, much like inappropriate punctuation causes a reader to stumble.  It is these spaces that slows time to an uncomfortable level, usually resulting in the annoyed participant simply wandering away.

For me, old bookstores also carry the heavy scent of dust.  The dust resting on the tops of unread pages tends to waft about the store with only the slightest movement of customers.  It is history itself traveling along the aisles, settling upon tabletops and into the fabric of overstuffed chairs.

Collectively, it is a symphony of sights and sounds, of stories and adventures tucked between covers designed to tempt you to extend your hand, lift the book from the shelf and be carried off on someone else’s imagination. 

Were I an artist, it would be old bookstores that I’d paint. With muted colors filling the shelves, I would even hazard painting in the squeaks from the worn floor planks, although never disrupting the soft classical music drifting through the stretched canvas.   Of course, I’d have to paint the tiny bell over the door an annoying, disruptive color.  Maybe a  dented brass color.