I thought about how hard it is to get your creations out into the world. I thought about how a story wants to be told and wrote this little short story about books looking to find their reader.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think in the comments.
A Book’s Longing by Jarrett S. Smith
Despite all the other books around him, the book felt lonely. He yearned for the comfort of human hands, but so far, that had eluded him.
He wondered what it would take for a reader to embrace him and lift him away from the shelves.
Ah, the reader! His perfect companion. The person who would not only choose him, but actually spend time with him. Between himself and the clones of himself who resided on either side of him, he doubted his chances of getting picked at all.
But how would the book find the reader? The author had already spent so much time crafting his perfect insides. The twists and turns of the plot, melded with the frustration and joy of the characters, to create the perfect symbiosis.
Of course, it hadn’t been easy. The author had drafted him and then carved him into parts and reassembled him. The book felt like Frankenstein’s monster. He remembered parts of himself that had been cut away. The replacement part was stronger, but like a phantom limb, he remembered when Ben, the hero of the book, had taken that left turn instead of the right.
He remembered the author sweating and crying as her fingers flew across the keyboard, often pausing to find the perfect verb. He loved his creator and all of herself that she had put into the book.
The book’s cover had been drawn by an artist who loved the work. During his creation, he had never thought about his outsides attracting anyone, but sitting on the shelf, he realized just how important an attractive cover could be.
The spark of an idea had to be pulled apart like a taffy machine. Words had to be shoveled in and then sculpted into what he was now. The heating of the press laminated his soul into the paper, which allowed his replication, over and over again. His binding brought him to life.
He had waited on the bookstore shelf for weeks now. The other books had explained to him that the most influential part of getting selected was for someone to pick up one of his twins. When that happened, more readers typically came to collect others.
Oh, how the book dreamed for that to happen. To find his personal shelf. He could only imagine the joy of finding a spot on someone’s shelf next to a row of other books.
But now, despite living next to his clone, he felt so alone.
The book saw a reader turned down the aisle. He did his best to push himself out of line just a little. Better to be seen that way.
The reader sauntered down the aisle. She looked up and down the spines of all the books on all the shelves, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth as she gazed and explored the titles.
Then she mumbled the name of the book’s creator. The book stretched out his pages, hoping to get her attention. She looked at the wrong section as she sidled over toward him. She reached her finger out and caressed the spines of the books before her.
The book could feel it, this would be the moment. The Reader dropped to a knee right in front of his section. For a moment, the reader’s eyes landed on him. Time stopped.
Her hand reached toward him, but grabbed the clone next to him.
If his spine hadn’t been so rigid, he would have deflated. He felt proud that his clone would go on. Perhaps he would be successful in delighting the reader, who would tell others and they would come get a copy. But for now, the book only felt darkness, like the lowest point of his plot.
He had nothing more to do than to watch. Immediately, the reader spun the book around to look at its backside. The reader’s eyes scanned the words on the back, judging what she found.
The reader smiled. The book would turn red with jealousy if his pages could change. The clone had found a match.
The reader spun the chosen book around, only to find a crease in the top corner of the clone’s cover. The smile felt the weight of gravity as the lips drooped to the ground. Then the left corner of the lips tilted up, and then the reader placed the book back.
Suddenly, he felt the warm embrace of the reader’s fingers. She lifted the book off the shelf and spun it around, inspecting it. The book prayed to the maker that everything would be okay.
Then the reader beamed at the book. In the moment of a look, they had intertwined their souls. Like a marriage, they had become one. He could feel her excitement at finding her treasure.
She placed him in the nook of her arms. The warmth spread through the cover and into the book’s pages. It felt like all the swelling emotions at the book’s own climax. His pages felt larger and more important than ever.
He felt significant, as if he had a task more critical than ever. He had survived creation. He had been chosen. Now came the hardest part. He couldn’t fail his brethren on the shelf, nor the reader who had selected him. All the pain he had gone through during his drafting would help him survive the read.
He wouldn’t worry about that now. As his view of the shelf vanished beneath her arms, he would enjoy the moment. He remembered his author, his artist, his brethren, and his reader as his former home receded from view.
What’s Next
I hope you enjoyed my story as much as the book enjoyed getting selected. Your time and energy means all the world to me.
If you’re looking for more fiction, check out my last short story The Line You Don’t Cross or browse through my archive of Fiction.
Also, make sure you subscribe to my mailing list here for every post update or on Substack for my monthly newsletter.
Leave a Reply