Entitled

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Fridays mean StoryTime with StoryLady.

Mothers arrive with oversized strollers that clog our aisles. It’s like rush hour in the fiction section, but no one is rushing to buy. Instead, while moms look at titles, small, drool-drenched hands reach for any Book that’s at eye level to shove into their teething mouths. The only titles who can tolerate it are the plastic-covered Kids’ Books. I thank the display system that put me on the third shelf, beyond the reach of sticky fingers.

Then I feel it. Movement. I’m being taken off the shelf. I look into the face of my holder but it’s not a*****e employee, it’s a mother. Her stroller contains not just one but two toddlers. I didn’t know you could get kids in bulk. She begins to read my backside. Could this be it, the Human I’ve been waiting for? But how can a mother with two little kids have time to read? This can’t be how my story goes.

“Gather round children,” calls out StoryLady, also known as Shannon, wearing a blue wig, orange dress and oversized green shoes. “It’s StoryTime.” The kids welcome her announcement with a collective shriek.

Rather than placing me back where she found me, in the conveniently alphabetized gap that I’ve left, the mother lays me flat, balancing on top of my shelfmates, over the space I call home. Seriously, how hard is it to place Books back where we belong? Leaving me misfiled, she navigates the double-wide stroller in the direction of StoryLady.

Honestly! I’ve been on the shelf for two months, waiting to be chosen, but I guess not today. In the end, I’m probably better off without her, because I want to be chosen by a Reader who gets completely immersed in my story and will pay attention to my nuances right through to my last page. Then my Reader will place me next to other Books that have been loved. There, I’ll make friends. We’ll spend the days telling each other our stories, safe in our home that’s warm and dry, on a shelf without splinters. That’s what I’m waiting for. I don’t want to settle.

“She wasn’t a good match for me anyway,” I mutter.

“Tell yourself whatever makes you feel better,” snorts the Book beneath me.

As StoryLady reads to the children about the adventures of the Cat in a Hat, the mothers cluster in one corner, focused on their phones. If the Bookstore really wanted to make money from StoryTime, they’d hire a bartender.

The joy and laughter of their offspring fills the space, warming the fibers of even the most hard-covered non-fiction Books. When StoryLady asks, “Who wants a lollipop?” the squeal of two dozen little voices denotes the end of StoryTime. Just as quickly as they arrived, the children and their mothers disappear, leaving tranquility to hang over the Kidz Korner.

I’m getting used to my newfound vista, on top of my colleagues, when a hand grabs me. This isn’t a Staffer, or the mother. Instead, a new face is staring at me. This one has long hair, glasses and a gentle face. She opens my cover and flips through my pages. I tell myself to act casual, like this happens all the time. Be cool. Don’t want it too much, or they can smell it on you.

She turns my pages and stops at my Chapter 3. It’s time for me to perform. When Readers open a Book, they think they’re reading us, when in fact we’re reading them, emitting our stories with an emphasis and cadence they can absorb. Get a good Reader and Books can perform spectacularly well; distracted, we stop caring. I have a chance with this one, so my words need to pull her gaze from left to right, then down a line and from left to right again. I exhale and begin.

Agnes awoke and looked out the bedroom window. She cherished these moments when the room was quiet. With her two younger sisters still asleep, she could hear her mother starting the stove’s fire and knew that soon, the porridge would be ready. But until then, the best place to be was in the middle of her bed with the quilt wrapped around her.

The horizon was calling and from her coveted position next to the window, she gazed into the distance and wondered again where life would take her. As the day started to break the blackness of the night, she imagined there was a girl just like her, somewhere that the sun had already touched, thinking the same thoughts.

She noticed that the snow had covered her footprints overnight. The path she made from the outhouse no longer existed. Could all her choices be erased in the same way?

Does foreboding in my story mean foreboding in my own life? Just because I have a story of longing within me doesn’t mean my story will be the same, does it? Why doesn’t life come with an instruction manual?

My Reader’s hair trails down my page. It tickles. Then she closes my cover. I knew it. The foreboding put her off. It always does. No one has made it past page 16 yet.

But rather than put me back on the shelf where she found me, she carries me in her right hand. I remind myself to breathe. I made it all the way to the counter once, only to be left behind when my potential Reader discovered she’d forgotten her wallet at home. She never returned for me. But this time, it feels different.

As we pass the Buddhism Books, I try to catch their attention, but they’re meditating again, focusing on the moment, when in these very seconds I am passing them by, forever.

At the register, the Human’s eyes smile at me through her glasses. She opens her purse and yes! Her wallet emerges. She’s buying me. I curl up my edges in a Book’s smile, but she doesn’t notice. It doesn’t matter. She’s already chosen me. I no longer need to impress her with my cover.

Keisha takes her money, crams a Bookmark into my spine with more force than necessary, then deposits me in a small paper bag. I inhale deeply to shift the Bookmark, but no luck. I hope my Reader looks at me tonight, if only to remove that plastic-coated wedge of advertising from between my pages.

Through the bag I shout a muffled goodbye to my friends. “Knock’em dead, kid!” yells Joe’s Discovery. I hear the remaindered bin wish me luck. As the door closes behind me, I realize the first chapters of my life are closing behind me too.