The Bookshop

By Georgia

This is a short story I wrote and entered in the same writing competition Lauren entered "Scintilla" in.

Books aren’t important. At least not any more, now the only ones who remembered the feeling of being transported to another world were waiting for death to claim them. They sat about idly all day watching those insufferable holograms dance before their eyes. I still remember though, I’ll never let myself forget the endless joy that reading brings me. I will never forget those books that impacted me so that I had the urge to mark them on my skin forever. I will never forget.

I was bored again. Everything was boring; the hologram shows did nothing to ease the restlessness building inside me. I called out to my mother, “Mum, I’m bored,” she didn’t even look up from the hologram, “Take a walk,”

Great, another walk. I was only nine and I’d managed to learn my way around the city from all my walks. Without really looking where I was headed I set out. Even outside was boring. Everything seemed muted, like the colours had been sucked out. Everything was grey, buildings, trees and people, just grey. Everyone seemed to be lost in some hologram distracting them from their grey lives.

I had almost missed it. I had almost walked straight past it, but something caught my eye. I almost laughed at the sight. It was a bookshop. We had of course learnt about books, how big they were before the hologram. A real bookshop, a shop dedicated to books, I’d never seen one up close before. I hurried in, almost knocking over a gnome holding a book.

All the lights were off, but the shop told me to stay with its creaking floorboards. Everything seemed to be covered in a fine layer of dust. I stopped at a book that caught my eye, pulling it off the shelf I peered down at the cover.

“The Secret Garden, it’s a good one that,”

I almost jumped out of my skin, hurriedly trying to return the book to the shelf where it belonged,

“I’m sorry… I was just looking, I promise,”

I looked up to see the oldest looking lady I’d ever seen. All she did was cluck her tongue at me before removing the book once again. She brought the book up close smiling sadly before handing it to me saying, “Learn to read this one first,”

“I know how to read!” I told her feeling very defensive. She just laughed at me saying, “Oh I don’t doubt that. But do you really know how to read, how to get lost in a book. How to live the life of the character, feel their joy and pain, feel their excitement and disappointment?”

I looked at her blankly, confused on how someone could be able to talk like that.

“Exactly, you got a name?” she asked, while turning away and shuffling through the endless shelves.

“Samuel, but everyone calls me Sam,” I said following this old lady through the store.

“Well nice to meet you Sam. I’m Maggie, resident crazy lady,” She bustled into what appeared to be a kitchen, but books were stacked everywhere it was hard to tell. “You drink tea, Sam?”

I looked up realising that I’d been wondering around looking at the stacks of books. “Yeah I guess. What’s with the books?” I didn’t even realised I had asked until Maggie began going into a wild rant.

“What’s with the books?” she mocked, “I’ll tell you what. Everyone forgot books; they forgot how it felt to be transported to another world, into another body. I never forgot, I kept buying books when everyone bought the holograms. Then writers stopped writing, publishers stopped publishing and readers stopped reading. So I did what I had to, I bought as many books as I could. Now I keep the shop open waiting for someone to remember.”

I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen or heard someone talk so passionately about one thing in my life. “Right; fair enough…” I was stuck in a daze.

“You good there, boy?” She came back two mugs of steaming tea in hand. She gestured for me to sit in one of the armchairs facing the window looking out into the backyard.

I nodded as I took the mug offered to me. Looking out into the garden mulling over the words just poured over me. I could hear Maggie’s contented sigh as she sunk deep into the armchair beside me. I looked over at her, suddenly noticing the tattoos all along her arms.

“You have tattoos!” I exclaimed,

“The tattoos are from the books I’ve read. Every time a book has an effect on me, I tattoo something on my skin. This one right here,” She turned lifting up her grey hair pointing to the small flower on the back of her neck, “This is from The Secret Garden.”

“But that’s on you for ever,” I pointed out, how could someone mark their skin because of a book?

“And that book will stay with me forever. Anyway, it’s getting late, your mother will be looking for you.”

I went straight for the door, still left confused that someone could be that affected by words on paper. I was about to run from the bookshop and forget all about Maggie and her strange words when she called out to me,

“Sam take the book with you,” She handed me the book. I ran all the way home.

I tried so hard to forget all about the book and Maggie, but my curiosity won out and I read the book. It took me all week to finish The Secret Garden and I think I was close to understanding Maggie’s words. I grew oddly attached to the characters, I felt. I headed straight to the bookshop when I finished.

“Finished, huh?” Maggie asked in way of greeting. She quickly disappeared amongst the endless shelves muttering to her self.

“What are you doing?” I asked, slowly trailing after her. She continued looking at the shelves ignoring my question.

“Read this one next,” she held out another book with a devilish smile on her face. I’d never run faster in my life. Desperately clutching on to the book.

That’s how my life continued for the next decade or so. Sometimes we would sit and talk about all the books and the secrets they share. Maggie and I became the best of friends, every day after school I would race over, and have an afternoon of reading. We would just sit and read together for hours before I would have to go home, but I never left with out a new book to read. For a while we had a dream of returning books to the world, I gave a few books to my friends to read. They threw them in the mud. I didn’t talk to them for a month. We never really stopped talking about the dream, just never went out to do anything with it.

I was nineteen now. I was going to travel around the world. Saying goodbye to Maggie was the hardest, she was sick, really sick. She told me not worry about her, so I didn’t. I promised I would call every day, and I’d never forget her.

I saw everything; I travelled for a year before meeting Sophie. Sophie was exciting and bold, everything I wasn’t. We travelled everywhere together. I eventually ran out of books and never returned to get more. Sophie and I got married nearly straight away and kids quickly followed. When we moved from the apartment into our first home, the books were left in boxes. I slowly forgot books, I slowly forgot the joy of reading and I slowly forgot all those afternoons with Maggie.

It all happened so fast, one day Sophie and I were laughing with the kids. The next we screamed at each other, it took two weeks to kick me out.

With boxes around my feet I sat on the curb not knowing were to go. When I saw the box I had shoved away for years. I remembered the afternoons with Maggie, all the books I read, all of tattoos. I knew where to go.

Unsurprisingly the key was still under the gnome with the book. Although now the book was crumbling away. “Maggie, Maggie!” I called out for her yet no response. The house felt still and untouched. Something was wrong. I raced around the house looking through the endless shelves and in all the reading nooks. But no Maggie. I continued yelling for her, a wave after wave of dread hit me again and again. I ran out into the garden and stopped dead. A little piece of me that had been quiet for years suddenly burst out. There in the garden was a stone engraved with-

Here lies Maggie Gibs,

‘If you look the right way the whole world is a garden’

- The Secret Garden.

#dystopian #books #thesecretgarden