{Taking the indirect route.}
{A possible shortcut is considered.}
I had finished work with enough time to make my way to the other end of the city. As it was not raining, I walked and I followed a path determined by the interesting characters I saw and green traffic lights. It felt good to lose myself in the crowd of people toing and froing, having been working in a room on my own all of the morning. With a red scarf wrapped high around my neck and a large bag on my shoulders relatively empty, I finally made it to the City Basement Books. Small signs heralded its presence. Handwritten, they announced a sale: “All books $1.” Down the stairs I went and the sight inside filled me with warmth: there at a little after two, a mass of the bookish slowly rifling through the rows of books still left on the shelves and the random piles on the floor. Pipes above the store, exposed in the ceiling, gurgled, and a bucket full caught the drips. The shelves creaked as I reached up high to extract a book on Australian birds and the fans kept the air of this underground damp city more bearable though in truth they seemed to provide pleasant sound more than anything. Students, well shod men with silvered hair, all sorts, all sorts and me, lost in a maze of bookshelves, trying to find treasure or to rescue a book. People silently sifting, one arm doing the leafing, the other carrying a pile close to chest, it was an enchanting sight even if a sad end for a bookstore favoured by many though perhaps not enough.
Somewhat overwhelmed, I scanned the shelves for books to rescue and tuck under wing. I found an illustrated encyclopaedia of predators, a catalogue from Sotheby’s of Islamic works of art to be auctioned on Monday the 22nd of November 1976, Racine et Port-Royal, Elbert Hubbard’s A Message to Garcia (selected for similarity to own name), a small copy of Blackie’s German Classics in German (I liked how it looked), Newnes’ Select Balzac, A Picture Book of English Embroideries from the V&A, a handbook for identifying corals, and a few others selected for either reference or beauty. I paid my $16 and made most of the emptiness of my bag. I’d come prepared as a tomb raider. In went Fables and Satires with its curious line drawings by Helen Kapp, Deer in Australia, The Magnetic North, and Exploring Between Tidemarks (with a starfish on the cover).
+ The sale ends today when the shop closes for good at 6. It is to be relocated.
