Walking Library (Blogtober Day 3)

She was a library. A novel maniac. All her inside curls up when she sees new novels in stores or when they are displayed on a shelf that has Reduced to Clear signs on top of them. Her heart beats a rhythm not yet known to the world, and her mind goes on a trip to wonderland.

The beauty of the display, the smell of books, the atmosphere of a bookstore. She could live in bookstores forever. She sees stories floating in the air, calling her to come over and make friends with the characters, or visit unknown locations. She eats novels, drinks novels, sleep on bookshelves, but do not bring novels out as waste, which is the only most pathetic part of her life.

“Reading novels is the cheapest way to travel”, she always says. Whoever she is quoting, I disagree.

She makes friends with the characters and understands them. She cries with them, laughs with them. See goose pimples on her, and we all know that, she has read a kissing scene. She fell in love with a character once, we felt scared for her. We all thought, she would not go back to normal. She even told us of a dream where they met and went on romantic dates. A few days later, we gave her another novel and she forgot all about her fictional lover.

But we regretted doing that. She hated the villain so much, she tore the book into two. We became more terrified than the moment when she fell in love with a character.

She would cry when the protagonist was in serious pain or was heartbroken. Her appetite would betray her and she would voluntarily fast, but this time, without a religious or health purpose.

I always felt she was supposed to be in a novel. A fictional character who is hopelessly romantic but a loner, just like Charlie Chaplin. I always felt, she did not belong to this world, but in a pen, yet to be poured out in a book, to be published and make another reader cry, laugh and dance with her.

“Would you like to be a writer, Awo?” I once asked her. She stared at me for a moment, then laughed. Laughed so hard, I felt foolish and just laughed with her.

“There’s no need,” she finally said, after having a plate of laughter and a glass of tears. “There are no more stories again. I’ve read a zillion novels, baby, and almost a quarter of them have the same plot, but with different settings and different character names. There’s no new place to travel to. Just visiting the same life but meeting new people, you know.”

And for once in my life, I totally agreed with her. Just living the same life, but making new friends.

I never had a problem with Awo. I liked her, because she was the weirdest person I have ever met in my life. She narrates to you the stories she had read for free. You do not need to buy novels if she is your friend. She’s also the cheapest bookstore I have ever known.

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