I’ve been awful about posting and I know it.
I’ve got 500 or so words today of a new story that may not go anywhere. I’ve been listening to an audiobook of “The Story Girl” by L.M. Montgomery, so it may read as a little old fashioned since I’ve got that sort of vocabularly stuck in my head. The image is a picture of a felt knight and horse I made for my wife’s nephews.
This post is copyright Kathryn Walton-Elliott.
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Week 17 Writing (503 words):
The bell over the door shivered out a sharp ting-a-ling-ling as the old hinges suddenly gave in. Stumbling through, I bit my lip apologetically at the elderly woman seated behind several stacks of books. She didn’t seem to notice me.
I hoped that her attitude had more to do with her work and less to do with ignoring noisy girls barging into her shop. Trying to be quiet, I crept forward and uneasily, but joyfully, breathed in the musty smell of hundreds of closely packed volumes. The shop was filled to bursting with books. They were everywhere. Lining the many haphazard mismatched shelves, stacked along the front windowsill, teetering in towers on several small tables tucked wherever there was room, and even piled up on the floor. I felt like I was swimming in books. I couldn’t imagine many feelings better than that.
Just as I was approaching my first stack on the round side table near the door, the woman looked up.
“Oh, hello. When did you come in?”
She hadn’t been ignoring me then. Maybe she was deaf.
“Just now,” I said as politely and clearly as possible.
I didn’t shout like people do at old deaf folks because I found it difficult to speak much above a whisper with so many books around. Bookshops and libraries had always taught me quiet. She couldn’t have been deaf though, because she answered me right away and wasn’t even watching my lips.
“Well, welcome. You might find it a bit hard to navigate at first,” she said in a matter-of-fact sort of way as she continued to thumb through the book in front of her.
“Thank you,” I managed, feeling a little thrown by her off-hand manner.
Turning back to the table, I started to understand what she had meant about navigation. At first browse, there didn’t seem to be any order to the way things were set out. The authors certainly weren’t alphabetized, nor were the titles. Novels sat next to science texts and poetry cuddled up to history books. It made for fascinating poking and peeking through, but I couldn’t imagine how you might ever find what you wanted in this place.
As if reading my mind, the woman suddenly spoke again, “Were you looking for anything in particular?”
“No, I- I just noticed your shop and wanted to take a look. I love books,” I confessed, then felt stupid for such a cliché declaration.
“Hate to disappoint you dear, but it isn’t a shop.”
“Oh?”
This was it. I had stumbled into some poor old woman’s private library and she was being polite. But then, I thought, she asked me if I was look for anything and she didn’t sound sarcastic. I was thoroughly confused.
“It’s a literary borrowing bank.”
“You mean a library?” I asked after a moment to put that together.
“No,” she said without any annoyance at being contradicted, “I mean a literary borrowing bank or a LBB for short if you wish.”
“Oh,” I said again.
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Week 17 Image:
