A Different Sort of Resistance

by Amy Graves

Today is not an easy day. You see, I’m living with a toddler. No, there was no surprise pregnancy that I never told you about. No, we didn’t adopt. I’m not talking about my pre and full teenagers. I’m not even complaining about my husband. The toddler I’m living with is me.

I woke up today with a 3 year old grumping around in my head. At first she was too full of musty sleep to realize we were even up and doing adult things like helping to get kids off to school, but then, suddenly, she was awake and she was mad.

I’ve been trying to walk every weekday morning. The kids leave and then I put on the proper outer wear given the weather and head out the door to meet with the families I no longer would get the chance to see if I didn’t do this since our kids now operate on differing school schedules. These people are my reward for getting outside and moving. And it works…most of the time. But today is one of those days. The weather is cold, windy, wet, threatening to stat drizzling again, cloudy, blechy. Yes, blechy. Remember…3 year old.

I stood at the door after my daughter left and just stared at the outside. The toddler me knitted her brows together, a frown growing into her face.  I need to walk today,  I think. I didn’t walk yesterday, so I need to walk today. The frown deepens.

Mind you, I’m not wearing a frown, my face is mostly a passive façade’. I’m tired and don’t have the energy to frown. But the toddler inside is frowning so hard I can feel the frown from the inside out.

Set the timer, I tell myself.  The noisy reminder will get my attention, make me check the time, make me move forward when I could so easily let time slip past and not notice. Then it would be too late to meet the others. Then it would be too easy to not go. Toddler me crosses her arms and her brows get more knotted. She doesn’t like timers.

I get some breakfast and while we eat she relaxes and happily plays on Facebook. I let her. I’m too tired to fight. Besides, she’s having fun and not making me miserable. It’s a win win.

Then the timer goes off. I can feel the physical jolt of her toddler foot slamming into the floor as I close the web page.

“NO!” she shouts, the words ringing through my head just as loud as if she were standing next to me. I ignore her and go turn off the beeping. She follows me and demands to be heard.

“NO!” she shouts again and stands there with her fists on her hips. I know this because I can feel them pressing on my hips. I can feel the fabric of my pajamas on the backs of my knuckles. Except my hands are in the sink rinsing out my cereal bowl.

She doesn’t like it when I ignore her. The stomping starts and I feel every smack of her foot against the floor in the soles of my feet, the sting, because we are both barefoot. I turn off the water and take a deep breath. When I turn from the sink she stands in my way and will…not…budge.

You cannot reason with a toddler. Not when they are hell-bent on getting their way. Not when they are absolutely certain that you are going to ruin their life by making them do something they do NOT want to do. I know this. I have children. So I try to reason with her anyway because I am too tired to find my backbone.

And this tactic works horribly.  

Walking is good for us,  I say.

“NO!”

We’ve been doing very well so far….

“I DON”T WANT TO!”

You know,  I say, trying to be scientific because that always works, if we don’t go today, then we might not go tomorrow and it will get easier and easier to not go and then we will suddenly be not going and all the benefits will disappear.  

She stomps her foot and shouts again. “NO!”

So I try guilt because that’s a classic trick. 

If we don’t go then we won’t get to see our friends.   

Another foot stomp rocks my spine. “NO! I DON’T CARE!”

I look at the ceiling, realize that some how my arms have gotten crossed over my chest (I don’t remember doing this) and I am standing rigid in my kitchen, my knees nearly locked with frustration.  

You are the adult,  I remind myself. You are in control. You make the decisions. I look back at the toddler me blocking my way and take a breath.  I got this,  I tell myself, trying to bolster my will power.  Her brows could not possibly get any closer together, that little body could not possibly make any more noise, could not make this any worse. She’s not really here, after all. But I am wrong.

We’re going and that’s the way it is, I tell her and leave the kitchen to get ready.

There is a fraction of a second where nothing happens and I think it will be okay, I’ll push through and move on with the day. A fraction of a second. Then the tantrum really starts.

She’s not “real”, this toddler me. She isn’t really standing in front of me, nor is she actually stomping her foot in my kitchen or shouting at me with her dark angry little face lifted towards mine. But she is real in that she inhabits my inner-self.

The tantrum rolls through me like a wave of electricity, like hot stream, like rocks poured on my head. I can feel her throwing herself on the floor and kicking and thrashing. She screams over and over in my head, “NO NO NO!! I DON’T WANNA!!” My shoulders are taut, my stomach tightens, my toes curl…I do…not…want…to…go…on…this…walk!

I take another deep breath and continue walking to the bathroom to change and when she sees that I am ignoring her she scrambles off the floor and runs at me, grabs my legs and digs her nails into my skin.  I am shocked – who IS this insane little girl?!? All I want to do is go for a walk for crying out loud! How, exactly, is that going to ruin her life?!?

Somehow I manage to disengage her from my legs long enough to pull on a pair of yoga pants. I manage to drag on a t-shirt and a light jacket even though she tries to rip them away from me. She sits on my foot and wraps her arms and legs around my leg when I try to leave the room to find my shoes. She is crying that angry, tearless cry of a toddler who is so furious she can no longer use the limited vocabulary she possesses.

I drag the two of us into the dining room, find my shoes, and struggle to put one on while she refuses to release my other leg. There is a two minute wrestling match before I can get her off the one leg long enough to get the next shoe on. 

She throws herself at my feet as I pull on my coat and gather my keys. The tears are flowing now and she tries a last ploy to derail my exit. She begins to untie my shoes.

Now that’s enough!  I scold her. You stop that right now or there will be no chocolate!

I know…it’s bribery, but sometimes it’s the right answer. And I know me. Chocolate is a high motivator. She stops trying to untie my shoes and sits up, her face blotchy, tear-streaked, snot covered.

“But I don’t want to gooooo!” she wails.

I look at her and shake my head. I feel bad.  I know you don’t want to go. But it’s important. It’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to like it, but we need to do it.

She hiccups and puts her thumb in her mouth. I reach down and pick her up. She puts her head on my shoulder and in a very soft, very tired voice she says, “ok.” She’s too tired to fight and falls asleep before I reach the front door.

I live with a toddler. She’s me. We have our good days and our bad ones. Today is looking a little better. She just needed a nap and a walk.

© Amy Graves  10/05/16

Brief - a poem

Brief

by Amy Graves

 The house is quiet

They are all gone for the evening

 Somewhere a violin plays

Accompanied by an accordion

 Somewhere a child shouts at

The other child
Foul
Not fair
Wait for me
Here, take this

Somewhere a grandmother laughs and

A grandfather smiles
The children are only here a short while
Their arguments are far more brief
Than my husband and I realize

 The house is quiet

And I can hear crickets
Outside
A subtle breeze blows across
The dollar store pinwheels
In my front yard
They click
And laugh
And argue with the wind about
Direction

The house is quiet

And somewhere time
Passes
Like a cricket’s chirp
Like the pinwheel’s
Spin
Like
A violin
Singing.
 

© Amy Graves 8/17/13

Porter's Bookstore - Final Chapter

Chapter 5 - Ashes to Ashes

Brandon went still as a statue, his eyes wide with fear. He swallowed and tried not to shake as Alan carefully shoved the end of his shelf between the two boards, pressing the edge of the book, pushing it back towards the middle of the shelves.

“There,” Alan whispered. “Let’s get it out of here, okay?”

The other two nodded and stood slowly, carefully, and began to walk the hallway to the incinerator. They were hit by the heat spilling from the open door of the huge metal furnace as they entered the room. The furnace’s body and piping writhed with blue-white arcs of static and twining snakes of light, the entire thing crackling and snapping at them.

“Okay,” Alan started. “Put your boards up across the incinerator’s opening, but don’t touch the furnace, and don’t let go until I can shove the book into the flames.” He looked at each of them in turn, they nodded. “I’m not sure if it will burn completely up if I can’t get it all the way into the flames. And I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything about it once it’s in there.” A large crackling arc jumped from one furnace pipe to another, emphasizing his point. “Don’t touch the furnace,” he said again quietly. “I’m not sure, but I think the book might be able to kill anything that touches the incinerator once it’s inside.”

“Yeah,” Brandon muttered and Angela nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

They stepped up to the open door.  Heat flowed out from the furnace in hideous waves, the interior a flickering orange and white hole of fire. All around them the furnace snarled and snapped, the static charges reaching out and biting their arms, their faces. Against pure instinct to run, they held the boards up to the door, the book sandwiched between like the dark, horizontal pupil of some demonic eye.

Alan set the end of his board against the spine of the book and shoved with every once of strength he could muster. The furnace gave off an incredible flash of light, electric charges flew from every surface to every piece of metal in the room - buttons, belts, necklaces, doorknobs, hinges, screw and nail heads, everything. The fire within flared, the heat climbed to an intensity that could not be withstood and Brandon, Angela, and Alan threw up their hands, dropping the wooden shelves to the floor and falling backward away from the inferno. The air filled with the smell of burning paper, glue, and leather; and then by the smell of burnt flesh, hair, and bone.

~ ~ ~

Jessica took the martini off the beach-side bar and placed it on her tray. She carried it out to the patio and set it on the small round table next to one of the deck chairs.

“Here you go, Mr. Porter,” she said, her voice light and pleasant. “I think John has finally figured out how to make them the way you like.”

She glanced at the older man. He was sitting with his eyes closed, his head resting on the back of the deck chair, his mouth slightly open.

“Mr. Porter,” she said quietly, a soft smile on her lips. “Your table will be ready in just a few minutes.”

He didn’t respond. She watched his chest for a second, felt a little silly for doing so, but he wasn’t a young man anymore.

“Mr. Porter?” she called again and took a step toward him.

“Mr. Porter?” she called louder and placed her hand on his arm.

The arm beneath her fingers crumbled away, leaving a large divot of empty air where skin, muscle and bone should have been. Jessica screamed, stepped back and caught her foot on the chair leg, jostling it. Mr. Porter disintegrated into a pile of ash and dust on the chair’s cushion and the cement patio. An evening breeze swirled around the screaming waitress, picked up the remnants of the old man, and spread him out over the beach in front of the Island Paradise Hotel, dispersing the subtle scent of brunt paper, glue, and leather with the old man's ashes as it passed through.

~ Peace and finality

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Descent

 Brandon set his foot on the first iron step and flinched. A static charge raced across the twisting scrollwork under his shoe, but all he felt was a mild buzzing beneath his foot. He took another step, pulled gently, but firmly against Angela’s weight.

“I’m good,” he said by way of encouragement. “Come on. You can do it.”

He took another step and felt the boards shake as she followed him onto the stairs. He could hear the high-pitched whine of her voice as it hummed from between her lips.

“You’re fine. Take another step.” The shelves shifted and twisted slightly in his hands. “Angela…”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, “but I can’t. There’s too much twist in the stairs. I can’t hold on to it like this.”

He looked over his shoulder and saw what she meant. He was three steps down, trying for the fourth, and she was on the top step trying hard not to lose her grip while avoiding the railing.

“Okay, okay. Just carefully walk your hands down the shelving, maybe six inches, and try from there.” She blinked and then started to inch her fingers forward, toward the book.

“OhgodOhgodOhgodOhgod,” she mumbled as she moved forward.

“Good,” he said when she took a step down and closer to him. “Let’s try again.”

“It’s in my face. I can’t see where I’m stepping,” she said.

“Try to put it more over your right shoulder, sort of over the railing.”

He felt her shift the boards and then started to lose his footing on the step. He tried to lean the other way, over compensated and his elbow touched the center support. White lightning flew up his arm to his shoulder and down to his hand.

“SHIT!” he snarled and recoiled.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry!” Angela cried out.

“It’s all right, just don’t let go.” He took a breath and blinked a few times. “Okay, the bad news is touching the metalrailing hurts like hell. The good news is you don’t get sucked into the book.” He peeked up at her. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

Brandon started down the stairs again, tilting the shelves slightly to the right to help Angela maneuver behind him. There was a sharp snap and she cried out, “OW!”

“What happened?”

“I hit the railing.” There was a pinched quality to her voice, pain and fear combined. “I’d like to avoid doing that again,” she said softly.

“I know. Come on.”

They slowly made their way down the remaining stairs, turning counter-clockwise around the sizzling center support pole; each of them sucking in sharp breaths of air as the stairs reached out covertly and singed a knee, a hand, a shoulder. A minute later Brandon touched the wood floor at the base of the staircase. He walked forward, Alan stepping to the side of the shelves again, his board raised, watching. Brandon turned toward him.

“Where are the stairs to the basement?” he asked.

“In the back corner, next to the bathroom,”

“Please tell me they’re wooden and straight,” Angela said softly.

Alan nodded. “The incinerator isn’t far from them, either.”

“Where’s your manager?”

“He’s up front counting the till. The barista is probably doing the same at the coffee counter. When they’re done they’ll switch and count the other till to be sure there aren’t any mistakes. It’ll take about ten minutes before they switch. We can make it down there before that.”

“Okay, wait,” Brandon muttered, “I need to turn back around.” He set the boards on his head once more, pirouetting underneath as he repositioned his hands. He nodded at Angela as she lowered her end to a more reasonable height. “Let’s go.”

There was a loud crack behind her as the stairs threw out another arc of static. She saw the bright flash of it reflected in Brandon’s eyes and flinched.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “Just a little further.”

“I know,” she said through clenched teeth. “Let’s just get it over with.”

He nodded and started to walk backwards toward the unisex bathroom at the back of the store. She followed and grimaced, her steps uneven and clumsy.

“You okay?” Alan asked her.

She shook her head, but kept walking. “I think I twisted my ankle when I ran down the stairs for the water bottles. I didn’t really notice until now.”

“Do you want me to take the boards?”

“No. I’ll be fine, it just smarts, that’s all.”

Alan gave her an unconvinced look as she stepped gingerly on it again. “You’re sure.”

“Yes. Besides, I’d rather keep that damn thing where I have some control over it, no offense.”

“None taken.”

They walked in silence for several steps and then Alan shook his head. “Did you see the dust?” he asked softly.

“Inside the book?” she asked.

“Yeah. On the ground. What do you think…”

“People,” Brandon said quietly. Alan looked at him. “Maybe insects, maybe a mouse or two, but mostly people.”

“But how?”

“Whoever touched it before me must have knocked it out of the shelf. It was on the floor when I found it and I was going to put it back.” He looked at Angela. “I didn’t see anyone when I was pulled in. Just the pages, the words, and dust all over the ground.” She blinked a few times and swallowed. “It must have been a while before I touched it. Hours.”

“Christ,” Alan whispered. “How the hell did it ever get in here in the first place?”

“I don’t know, but we need to get it out,” Brandon replied, looking over his shoulder at the “Staff Only” sign on the door behind him. “Do you have a key to get us down there?”

Alan jammed his hand in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. “Yeah, here.” He turned to the door and unlocked it, pushed it wide open and flipped on the light. “Be careful, the steps are a little steep.”

There was a menacing sizzle and snap along one wall. He looked back at the stairs and cringed as static leapt between the metal brackets holding the wood railing in place. “Don’t touch anything,” he muttered.

“Why?” Angela demanded. “I thought you said they were wooden!”

“The steps are and so is the banister. But the brackets that hold the banister to the wall are metal. And they’re throwing sparks.”

“Jesus! I can’t do this!” she wailed.

“Are there railings on both walls or just one?” Brandon asked.

“Just one.”

Brandon turned to Angela. “Okay, we can do this. We’ll just lean on the wall without the banister and stay as far away from the railing as we can. It’s what, twelve steps? We can do that. Come on.” He backed toward the basement door. “Alan, go down there and get the incinerator ready. Once we get to the bottom I want to throw this damn thing in and get the hell out of here.”

“Right. Be careful,” Alan said and disappeared down the steps. There was a loud snap followed by a curse.

“All right. All in one go,” Brandon said to Angela. “No stopping unless we absolutely have to. Remember, lean on the wall without the railing and go for it.”

Angela nodded. “Okay.”

They started down the stairs and pressed their shoulders into the blank wall. The way was steep and narrow and as Brandon reached the first bracket it flung out a spark and struck him in the thigh.

“Damn it!” he growled. Angela hesitated. “Don’t stop!” he shouted. “Just go! All the way down, go, go, go!” They stumbled and half fell down the remaining steps; both of them turned broadside to the wall to stay out of reach of the static.

Brandon came down hard on the basement floor, the last step taller than all the rest. He stumbled, lost his balance and fell backward, dragging Angela down the steps. She fell into the railing, right on top of a bracket, and screamed. The static charge flew up around her and sent her hair out in all directions, lit her face in an unearthly bright light. Brandon pulled the shelving with all his strength and she fell forward and to the right, still clinging to her end of the boards.

“Angela!” he yelled.

Alan came running from down the hall. “What happened?”

“We slid down the stairs…the electrical charges…I fell and dragged her into the railing,” Brandon stammered as he tried to kneel and still hold the shelving in place. Alan smacked the boards hard with his own, the vibration from the strike sending a different kind of electric jolt through everyone’s hands.

“Jesus! What the hell?!” Brandon shouted.

“The book!” Alan yelled back. “Look!”

“Oh God,” Angela managed to whisper as she also tried to kneel. “Brandon, don’t move. It’s almost to your fingers.”

 
~ Peace and vigilance

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Alan

Angela hit the wooden floor at the bottom of the stairs wrong and twisted her ankle. With a muttered apology she pushed past a woman and her daughter and hobble-ran towards the rear of the store where the tiny coffee counter was hidden in a nook between the romance novels and the literary fiction. She headed for the cold case and grabbed two water bottles. Without slowing down she pushed her way past customers to the counter, slammed the bottles down and dug in her purse for her wallet. The man who had been next in line stared at her in complete disbelief.

“God, I am so sorry,” she stammered as she struggled to disentangle the faux leather billfold from the neon pink address book taking up way too much space in her bag.

“I swear I never, ever do this. It’s an emergency.” She grabbed a ten from the wallet and threw it onto the counter. “Keep the change,” she said as she thrust the wallet back in her purse and grabbed the bottles. “I am so sorry, really. I swear I will never do this again. I swear,” and she ran for the stairs.

Never in her life had she felt as slow running up a flight of stairs as she did now. Every step seemed to fight her, twisting out of her reach just enough to slow her down.

“Wait!” she yelled as she made it to the top. “I’m here!”

She ran around the corner and found the haggard man kneeling near the book, staring at it as if it would leap at him if he looked away. He glanced up at her as she reached him, dropping her purse on the floor at her feet and struggling with the bottles’ screw-on caps.

“Here.” She handed him one and went back to twisting the cap on her own. “Open it!”

He twisted the cap; the safety ring snapping in resistance as the top finally came free. She stepped as close to the book as she dared and tipped her bottle over the back cover, emptying the entire thing onto it. The man did the same and they watched in horrified fascination as the water spilled into the cover and disappeared, leaving no trace. There was no sharp crack of electricity, no ozone filling the air in front of them, no man.

Angela shook the last drops out of her bottle as if they would some how be enough to fling him into existence again. “I was so sure this would work,” she muttered. “So sure.”

“It was a good idea.”

“Yeah, well it didn’t work!” she shouted and threw the empty bottle at the book. It bounced off and rolled away.

“Here,” the man said and opened the cardboard box. Two rat faces, one white and black and the other all white, poked up from inside, noses and whiskers twitching. He reached in and grabbed them both, handing the white one to her. It squirmed in her hands, wrapped its tail around her wrist to keep from falling. She pulled the tail off her skin and shivered as she tucked it in next to the rat’s body.

“Oh, God. Do we have to do this?”

“I can’t think of anything else to do!” he shouted at her.

“I know, I’m sorry. Okay, let’s just get it over with.” She shivered again but wasn’t sure if it was because she was holding a rat or because she was about to kill it.

“Okay. On the count of three drop it on the book.”

She nodded and held the rat next to his over the back cover of the book.

“One. Two. Three!”

They dropped the rats at the same time and the air filled with ozone, the hair on her head lifted and stood out. There was a bright flash and Angela threw herself backwards, felt the man close his hand around her leg and follow her motion. The crack that immediately followed was sharp, nearly earsplitting this close. They landed in a heap against the bookcase behind them and were pressed to the floor by a sudden weight. Someone groaned and gave a hoarse cry.

“Holy Mary full of grace…”

Angela opened her eyes and stared at the drawn face of the sales associate she had spoken to just twenty minutes early. “He’s out! He’s out! We got him out!” she shouted and pushed him off her side.

Brandon pulled himself out from under the sales associate’s legs and nodded, rubbing the side of his head.

“We got to get rid of it.”

She nodded and then touched the sales associate. “Are you okay…” she glanced at the name tag pinned to his sweater, “Alan?”

“Yeah. Jesus. Yeah, I think so.”

“I’m Angela and this is…” She looked at the man sitting next to them with her eyebrows raised.

“Brandon. Listen, we got to get rid of that thing.”

“How?” she asked.

The intercom broke in again. “Porter’s Bookstore will be closing in five minutes. Please bring your selections to the front registers and have a pleasant evening.”

Alan sat back against the bookcase and then thought better of it and leaned forward. “Burn it.”

“Okay, but where,” Brandon asked.

“The store’s got an incinerator in the basement. Porter runs it all the time to deal with the unsold extra copies.” Angela looked at him, incomprehension in every newly acquired deep crease in her face.

“What?”

“When you have extra copies that don’t sell right away, and if the publisher won’t take them back, you either keep them and hope someone eventually buys them or tear off the covers and throw them out. Either way you take a loss. Porter burns them to save the space they would take up in a landfill.”

“That’s awful,” she whispered. “No wonder the thing tried to kill us. It’s fighting back.”

“It’s a book!” Brandon shouted. “Books don’t fight back!”

“Well they don’t eat people either, but that one sure gave it a helluva shot!” she yelled back, her eyes wide and bulging.

Alan ran his hands across his face and then looked at his palms, the white, dry lines etched into them crying for moisture.

“We need to burn it,” he said. “Completely. It’s gonna keep doing this until it has enough moisture stored up. We need to burn it.” He stood up and headed for his cart, sidestepped the book and grabbed the metal handle to wheel the cart into place.

“Jesus!” Brandon yelled. “Not the cart you fool! It’s metal! The damn thing will just suck you back in if you’re touching it with the cart and the cart is touching you!”

Alan jerked his hand away and stared at the book and then the cart. “What do you mean?”

“The static electricity…I think it uses the static to draw in its victims. The current’ll flow from it, through the cart, and pow, you’re gone.”

“Yeah, thanks man,” Alan stammered.

“No problem,” Brandon said and pulled Angela to her feet. She looked at him hard.

“How old are you?”

Brandon blinked, glanced at his aged hand and muttered, “Twenty three.”

She nodded. “I’m twenty nine. How old do I look?”

Brandon squinted. “About fifty.” She looked over at Alan.

“You look about forty.”

He laughed. “I’m thirty one.”

She looked back at Brandon. “He was only in there, what, five minutes?”

“Yeah, and the rats are probably dead, so we need to get rid of this thing before it snatches someone else.”

“Right. How?”

Brandon looked around and then walked two stacks down the aisle and jerked hard on a shelf. The board came away from the case sending the books on its surface to the floor. He jumped aside and then used the wood shelf to plow them against the opposite case. He handed the shelf to Angela and reached for another. More books hit the floor and were plowed to the side. “Alan, get a shelf, too.”

The sales associate nodded and yanked a shorter one off the end-cap next to him. The marketing poster and carefully arranged books fell, smashing into the ones beneath and dragging a few to the floor with them. He pushed them into a pile just as Brandon had done.

“Okay, now what?”

“Now we try to get the damn thing on one of the shelves, sandwich it in between it and another shelf and get it to the basement as quickly as possible.”

“Yeah, okay, I get what you’re talking about,”

Angela nodded and walked around the book and slid the end of her shelf up against its spine.

“Put you end on the page side and let’s see if I can tip it over onto your shelf,” she said.

Brandon moved forward and jammed his shelf against the floor and the cream colored pages. “Okay.”

Angela turned to Alan. “Come over here and help keep it straight.”

Alan stepped around the fallen books and stood to her right, ready to beat the book into pieces if necessary. Carefully Angela tilted her shelf, tried to tuck the edge of the end under the spine and raise it enough to slide the shelf further under. The book shifted a little and they all jumped. It fell back, flat against the floor.

“Okay,” Alan breathed. “Let’s try it again.”

This time Angela managed to flip it over so that it was leaning fully against Brandon’s shelf, the front cover exposed. The three of them stared at it.

“There’s no title.”

“Nothing on the spine, either.”

“Well, there were words inside,” Angela whispered. “I remember the words. They were huge and sharp and wicked.”

“Yeah, okay. Angela,” Brandon nodded at her, “keep the bottom end of your shelf where it is, but hand me the rest. I’m going to trap it. Alan, don’t let it fall.”

“Right.”

Angela tipped her shelf forward until Brandon was able to reach out and take it from her, slowly bringing the two pieces of wood together on either side of the book. He slowly lowered the two shelves while Alan kept the book from sliding out with the end of his shelf. They all let out the breaths they were holding when Brandon was able to finally lay the shelving down on the floor, the book safely sandwiched between them. Alan knelt down near the book and tapped the end of it with his shelf, sliding it inch by inch down the length of the longer shelves until it was resting near the middle.

“Take your end, Angela, and we’ll carry the whole thing down the stairs,” Brandon instructed.

She licked her lips, her thick tongue doing little to wet the cracked skin. She knelt down and slipped her fingers under the bottom shelf, clamped her thumbs across the top and nodded.

“Okay.”

“You got it tight?” he asked as he did the same on his end.

“Mmhmm. Yeah.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

They stood up in relative unison, Alan watching the book and holding his shelf like a cudgel, ready to smash it if it should fall away. Slowly they stepped over and around the books that had spilled to the floor near the end cap. Alan pushed the outliers into smaller piles to make a clear path.

Angela grimaced. “Wait. Stop. I’m losing my grip.”

Brandon stood still in mid-step, his eyes wide as she clasped and re-clasped the boards, balancing the ends of the shelves against her stomach.

“Okay,” she said.

They continued, Angela walking backward, peeking over her shoulder to be sure of her steps, Brandon steering from his end, Alan beside the book, but a few steps out of reach if it should slip. As they neared the stairs the air took on a decidedly electric odor. The hairs on Angela’s head began to stand out.

“It’s happening again,” she said, the pitch of her voice suddenly higher than it had been.

“Don’t let go,” Brandon replied, his voice as firm as he could make it.

The floor beneath their feet creaked and Angela jumped, the shelf boards and the book shifting in her unsettled grip.

“Don’t let go,” Brandon growled, his eyes bulging, his teeth clenched.

“I’m trying not to,” she snapped and took another step backwards.

The ozone smell had grown stronger and Alan could see the hair on the backs of his hands standing straight up.

“God, look at this,” he muttered and turned his hand so they could see. “She’s right. It’s getting ready.”

“That’s exactly why we got to get rid of it,” Brandon snapped. The hair on his neck had lifted and was sticking out from his skin. “Keep going.”

Another step. The staircase threw out an elegant electric arc from the outside railing to the center support column. Brandon’s eyes grew wider and he glanced at Alan. The other man had seen it and nodded. Angela looked from one to the other.

“What? What?” She looked over her shoulder in time to see another white-blue flicker along the iron railing. “Oh shit.” She turned and looked at them. “I’m not going down those steps.”

“We have to get rid of this.”

“I’m not going down those steps!”

“Angela,” Alan started. She turned terrified eyes on him.

“I am NOT going down those STAIRS!” she snarled.

“Stop!” Brandon yelled. She looked back at him and he could tell that she was crying even though there were no tears sliding down her face. “Just listen to me,” he said softly. “Please.” She bit her lip.

“There isn’t any other way.”

She shook her head no.

“There’s an elevator at the back,” Alan threw in, “for people who can’t walk up the stairs or when we bring books up on the carts.”

Brandon shook his head. “No. I am not getting in a big metal box with this thing.”

“But it’s okay to get on the damn stairs and get sucked into it out here?!” Angela shouted.

“Listen to me,” Brandon started. The manager’s voice cut in once more.

“Porter’s is now closed. Thank you for stopping in and have a peaceful evening.”

He tried again. “I’d rather take my chances out here where we might be able to get away, than in a small space that we can’t get out of until the door opens.”

The stairs sent out another spark and Angela shut her eyes and started to shake. Brandon could feel it through the boards.

“I know you’re scared,” he said. “I’m scared. I don’t want to see the inside of that thing again. But I don’t want anyone to see it. Look at me, Angela.” She took a breath and opened her eyes. “The shelves are wood.” She looked down at the shelving in her hands, the dark stained grain swirling and slipping along the face of it. “Electricity doesn’t pass through wood. At least that’s what I remember from a first-aid class.”

“Yeah,” Alan muttered. “You use a broomstick to move the broken electric cord off the victim, right?”

“Yeah. The book is caught between two boards. It can’t touch us.”

“What about the stairs?”

He looked at them for a second. “I’m not sure, but I think we’ll be okay. I think it’s just static. I don’t think it can kill you, us, if the book isn’t actually touching the stairs.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“I’ll go first,” he said. “Let’s turn around and I’ll go down the stairs first.” He started to walk in a circle and she followed.

“What do you want me to do?” Alan asked. “I can’t go down next to you guys. There’s no room.”

Brandon looked over his shoulder at the stairs. “Maybe you could go down first, see if the static goes all the way down. Keep anyone from coming up or getting in the way if we have to drop it over the side of the railing.”

Alan didn’t look thrilled about this, but he nodded and walked to the top of the staircase. It snapped at him and sent a wriggling snake of electricity down the railing. He took a breath and stepped onto the first iron tread. Angela caught a cry in her mouth as she watched an arc of light dance right in front of him. He touched the railing with a finger and snatched it away, shoving it in his mouth.

“Try not to touch the metal if you can,” he said and took another step and then another. The static flew up and down the railing, arced behind him and in front, but he seemed to be doing fine. “I think it’s okay. Just try not to touch it.” He continued down the steps.

“Okay,” Brandon said and Angela looked back at him. “I want to turn around and hold this thing over my head as we go down. I need you to hang on and help me not drop the shelves.” She nodded.

He lifted his end at the same time that he bent his knees, trying to keep the whole thing as level as possible. He set the bottom shelf on the top of his head and began to turn around under it, switching hands as he went until he was facing the stairs.

“Follow me,” he said.

“Okay.”

Angela tried to step in time with him, her end slightly lower even though she had lifted it to chest height. They neared the stairs and Brandon hesitated. A thick, wide arc leapt from the center support to the railing, just missing his face.

“All right, here I go. Just try to keep up with me as best you can.”

“Mmhmm,” Angela replied, nodding, her lips pulled into her mouth and over her teeth to keep the fear inside.



~ Peace and a safe journey

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Brandon

Brandon stumbled and ran his head into the bookcase in front of him. He had seen a woman in the bright flash of light, in the instant before he was free. He had tried to grab her, but she was suddenly gone, caught in the binding, slipping into the text, beyond his fingers. He looked down at his hands, the skin loose and dry and cracked. They looked like his grandfather’s hands, seventy not twenty-three. He blinked and rubbed his face, felt the skin cry out at the roughness of his fingers, the elasticity of the skin on his cheeks gone, begging for moisture.

He had to get out. He stood up and lost his balance, reached out to catch himself and jerked his hand violently away from the books on the shelves as his fingers brushed against the glossy dust jackets. He glanced feverishly around for the stairs and lurched toward them. The wrought iron railing produced a bright spark at his touch, the static following him down the twisting steps as he fled the second level of the bookstore. He hit the wooden floor at the bottom of the staircase and stuck his static burned fingers in his mouth. There was no saliva in it to soothe the pain. He bolted for the door.


“Hey, watch where you’re goin’!” a customer hollered at him as he careened off the man’s shoulder. Brandon turned his haggard face and grimaced an apology as he dragged the heavy door open and fell out into the cold December air.

He stood on the sidewalk and drew in huge gulps of outside air, freezing cold, and filled with the remnant exhaust of the traffic moving past the storefront. He coughed, the dryness of the air raking the back of his throat like sharp twigs and glass. He stood there trying to recover, his eyes closed, hand over his mouth, struggling for air when the woman's face flashed against his eyelids, so shocked, so amazed, on the verge of terror. He knew what she was feeling, knew that now she was ripping at the paper with fingers that were withering before her eyes, screaming and not being heard. He knew.

Shit!

He turned and walked up the block past Loaves and Fishes Cafe, past Step Right In Shoes, and Pet Depot. He shook his head trying to get her face out of his mind. He could hear the scream and put his hands over his ears, felt the loose skin along his jaw, wrinkled and hanging.

Shit!

He stopped in front of the pet store and squeezed his eyes tight. It didn’t help. He could still see her, floating behind the bright flashes of eye-stars and the twisting lights that spun faster the harder he pressed his lids together.

Shit, shit, shit!

He opened them again and stared at his reflection in the plate-glass window. He looked ancient, shriveled, a walking mummy. Beside his reflection the woman’s face appeared, her mouth open in a scream, her eyes wide with terror. Beyond her image, behind the glass and inside the store, white rats, tawny mice, fuzzball hamsters, and a litter of tabby kittens wandered around their display cages. Brandon darted inside.

He located a salesgirl and dragged her to the window display. “I want two,” he pointed as she stared at his face.

She forced her gaze to follow his wrinkled hand. “Kittens? What color?”

He shook his head violently, his stomach turning over. “God no. Rats.”

She gave him another long stare and then stepped over to the cages. “Boys or girls?” she said as she reached into the cupboard underneath and pulled out a collapsed cardboard carry box.

“I don’t care,” he replied. She glanced up at him as she folded the box into shape. He felt his face redden. “Girls. No! Boys. No! One of each. Really,” he muttered, “it doesn’t matter.”

The salesgirl stood back up and set the box on the counter. Brandon leaned towards the cage to watch her remove two of the occupants. They scrambled away from her fingers as she chased them around the cage. Finally she caught one and deposited it in the box. She looked at him again and he nodded. She grabbed a second rat and stuffed it into the box with its cage-mate.

“Do you need any bedding, a cage, some food?” she asked as she secured the top of the box. Two pink rat noses poked out of two air holes on one side of the box.

“No, I’m good.”

She pushed a few treat cubes into the holes before handing the box to him. “Don’t leave them in there too long and not alone. They’ll chew their way out in nothing flat,” she instructed as she stuck a barcoded sticker to the box.

“Right.” He lifted the box from the counter and felt the rats scramble on the smooth cardboard bottom, their claws struggling for a hold that wasn’t there. “Thanks.” He headed for the cashier and dug in his back pocket for his wallet while the rats danced in their box in tiny circles around each other.

He set the carry box on the counter and pulled out a credit card. The cashier looked at him, her mouth slightly open, and then at the box. A pointed rat nose covered with twitching whiskers was sticking out of an air hole on either side.

“Eighteen fifty,” the girl mumbled. He handed her the card and she took it, staring at his hand and then glancing quickly at his face. She ran it through the machine and got an error message. She tried again and got another one.

“Here,” he muttered softly and handed her his debit card. Same result. Error times two. She handed the cards back and he reinserted them before digging in the bill pocket for some cash. She glanced at his driver’s license and then at his face. He pulled a twenty out, shoved it across the counter, and jammed his wallet back in his pocket. Still darting looks at him, the cashier punched in the amount. The drawer dinged as it popped open and she pulled a one and two quarters from the till.

“One fifty is your change,” she said and set the bill, coins, and the receipt on the counter and slid them towards him. She snatched her hand back before he touched the money and then looked mildly apologetic.

“Thanks,” he stammered and grabbed the money, stuffed it in his front pocket and picked the carry box off the counter. The rats did their mad scramble dance as he hurried to the door.

“Wait, do you want a bag?” the cashier called after him as the door swooshed shut. He didn’t bother to wave off the question, just hurried back towards Porter’s with his rats.

The bells above the doors jingled as he pushed his way through and half-walked half-ran to the twisting staircase. He felt exhausted and in desperate need of a drink, but all he could see was the woman’s face as the pages closed in around her. He managed to take the steps two at a time, twisting himself around the center support, the carry box rocking wildly from side to side as he climbed, the rats skittering around inside.

Overhead, slipping quietly through the dry air of the store came the manager’s voice. “Good evening. Porter’s Bookstore will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your final selections and bring them to the front registers for purchase. We wish you a warm and comfortable evening and thank you for stopping in to see us.”

Brandon took a hard right at the top of the stairs and headed back towards the Self-help section. The air filled with the scent of ozone, the hairs on the back of his neck started to rise. He reached the aisle and watched in horror as the sales associate, his little corner cart sitting nearby, reached down to pick the book up off the floor. Even under the weight of his coat the hair on Brandon’s arms stood up.

“NO!” he shouted and the man turned his head, a question on his face as his fingers closed over the book’s spine. There was a tremendously bright flash, a sharp crack and the sudden appearance of a woman, who fell shoulder first into the bookcase across the way. The sales associate was gone.

Without thinking Brandon ran to the woman and grabbed her. She looked up and let out a strangled cry of relief. She looked twenty years older than she had when her face had flashed in front of him as he was flung from the book’s grip.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She stared at him and then nodded, blinking her eyes. She reached up and wiped her cheeks and then looked down at her hands. “I can’t cry,” she muttered and then looked back at Brandon. “There’s a man.”

“Yeah, one of the staff. He tried to pick the book up.”

“That’s what I did,” she said, her voice soft and perplexed.

“We’ve got to get him out.”

The woman looked down at her hands, turned them over and back. “My God. How long…”

“Ten minutes, maybe fifteen,” he said, helping her to her feet. She stared at him as she stood, reached out and touched his ravaged face.

“How long?”

“I don’t know, an hour, maybe.” He reached down and picked up the carry box. The rats were starting to chew the edges of the air holes. “We’ve got to get him out,” he said again. “Here, move over.” She stepped aside and watched as he moved closer to the book.

“Wait! What are you going to do?”

“Drop the rats on it. Them for you, I mean, for him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Obviously the book grabs the next living thing that touches it and throws the used-up one out. At least it does if the used-up one is still alive.” He had an after image of the dust scattered all around his feet while he had struggled between the pages.

“No, God, don’t do that!” Her eyes were wide with horror.

“They’re rats, he’s human. What? Are you going to touch it again to get him out?”

She took a step away from him and shook her head. “No. Just…wait,” and she turned on her heels. “Just wait, please!” She ran down the aisle and towards the staircase. “WAIT!” she shouted and he heard her feet smacking the iron steps as she hurried towards the first floor.


~ Peace....

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Angela

The door to Porter’s Bookstore thumped shut behind Angela, the jingle bells hanging from the top of the doorframe tinkling softly. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of paper, ink, and glue. The store was quiet like usual, the gentle beeps and chirps of the register tallying up purchases, the cashier sending the customer out the door with a warm good-bye the only extraneous noises. She took another breath. She loved the place, with its the twelve foot high, floor to ceiling, dark-stained, wooden bookcases and wrought iron spiral staircase that stood like a single helix of literary DNA, winding upward to the second floor. She glanced at the clock behind the counter. Forty five minutes to find something to take home and bury herself in while the rest of the city plodded around in the cold.


She headed for the Autobiographical section and walked the length of the aisle with her head tilted reading the title and author on the spine of each book, dragging her fingertips along the shelves, leaving soft anti-dust trails behind. She caressed the bindings of books that interested her, drew each one carefully from its place to peer at the cover, eased open the first few crisp pages to scan the table of contents or read the introductory paragraphs at the beginning of Chapter One. If it failed to grab her she would replace it and continue on, repeating the process, waiting with barely controlled tension for the book to catch her eye and demanded she read it from cover to cover.

Her search took her around the corner and down the next aisle, through Biographies. She shivered as the cold December wind blew in through the door as another customer entered and disappeared into the back of the store. The bells above the door continued to tinkle, jostled gently by the wind whistling through a crack along the top edge of the doorframe.

Angela dragged her fingers along the shelves and jumped when a large electrostatic spark bit her fingers. Instinctively she snatched her hand from the shelf and shook it, the sting of the shock still tingling on her skin. She looked at the spine of the book from which the spark had originated. Hitler: God or Demon? the title read and she snorted. She leaned against the bookcase behind her and heard the crackling of static electricity on the wool of her peacoat. The bookstore is too dry, she thought to herself.

A sales associate wandered up the aisle towards her, pushing his strange little corner shaped cart filled with new book. She reached out and touched him lightly on his shoulder. A spark bit her fingers.

“You need to turn up the humidity,” she said quietly and rubbed her hand, “or the books...”

The man smiled at her. “Yeah, I know. Several people’ve mentioned it. I told Jack. He’s going to see if he can do something about it.”

Angela frowned at him.  “Who’s Jack?”

“The new assistant manager. Porter hired him a week ago. He’s pretty good, but he’s been having trouble getting the humidifier to work right.”

“Is Mr. Porter all right?” Angela asked, her forehead still knotted together with irritation.

“Yeah, just took a couple weeks off. I guess his doctor said he needed to take a break or he would whither away into nothing from working so hard.” The associate placed his hand on a nearby shelf and quickly yanked it back following the loud snap of a spark. “Jeez! I better go remind Jack,” he muttered and trundled his corner cart away, shacking his fingers. Angela watched him turn out of sight at the end of the bookcase and found herself alone, once again, with the biographies. Book after book, shelf after shelf filled with the lives of other people, living in other places, doing other things. She sighed and continued her search.

From Biographies to Women’s Studies to Art and Photography and on into Fiction and Literature she searched. Aisle after aisle she wandered, breathing the paper and ink smell, running her hands over the bindings and jumping at the shocks and snaps that nipped her fingers. None of these stacks held the book that she felt driven to take home with her. Finally she entered the Science Fiction and Fantasy section and stood, transfixed in front of a newly released hardcover, a picture of a dragon in flight carrying a rider holding a massive rifle in his arms. Flight of Fire the title proclaimed, by J.P. MacDowel. She reached for it, hesitating a moment, stealing herself for the crack of a spark. None came and she pulled the book from the shelf and listened for the familiar creak of new glue snapping along the spine. Slowly, carefully, she read the inside flap of the dust jacket, imagining herself into the storyline.

"Flying had been Justyn’s dream from boyhood, but when the destiny of Blazenden teeters on the edge of disaster, flying becomes a dream he will have to wait to see realized. Joining his cousin in the ranks of the Army of One, following the lead of the Crystal King himself, Justyn finds more than adventure among the warrior soldiers he comes to call his brothers. In a battle in which everything seems lost he will find his true calling as a flyer, lose his greatest ally, gain the love of a she-devil, and find the key to saving his beloved Blazenden."

Angela took a breath and closed the cover, staring at the dragon and its rider. She could almost make out the face of the rider as he raised the rifle to his eye to sight and fire on an enemy soldier. He pulled at her. The dragon called. She could feel her place in the story and tucked the book into the crook of her arm.

Normally she would have left the shop, having found her book for the night, and return only when she needed another fix. But this evening something else seemed to be calling and she continued through the stacks searching for the source of her tension. Again she stroked the shelves and spines, snaps and bright sparks leaping in her wake.

She walked the Mysteries section without success, through the Poetry section where she received the largest of the shocks so far that evening, and then on to the end of the Music Appreciation section where she found herself facing the black, wrought iron steps of the spiral staircase. It had been ages since she had needed to climb them to find the necessary book to satisfy her need. She peered up through the intricate weave of iron to the second floor. The book was up there, somewhere. She could feel it, could almost hear it calling in her head. With a tentative hand she reached for the twisted, curving railing, sure of a shock that never came. Fourteen steps later she reached the second floor and the high freestanding cases there, sisters to the ones on street level.

It was quiet. Off in the depths of the stacks Angela could hear the few other customers sliding books off and on shelves as they fulfilled their own quests. She resettled the hardcover in her embrace and began to walk the cases starting in the History section. The crackling of static electricity was greater along these shelves, popping and flashing as she passed over the spines with her index finger, the sparks large enough to leave a subtle after burn.

She drew her brows together in a resurgence of irritation. That Jack had better fix the humidifier quick, she grumbled mentally, or the whole place will go up in flames it's so dry.

Nothing in the History section gave her pause except to snap and bite at her finger. She turned to the Reference section and perused her way through, pulling the occasional dictionary, ACT Test-prep guide, or book of lists from its place. Fewer shocks found her fingers here, somehow deterred by the onslaught of information filling the pages.

She turned a corner and started down the aisle of how-to and self- help books. Smiling, intelligent-looking faces stared back at her from the shelves. One copy faced out with six of its brothers stacked neatly against it, waiting to give solutions to those with unsolveable problems, hints on cleaning faster, ways to prevent pipe blockage or relationship failure. So many were new, crisp, and brightly colored to catch the eye. Without thinking she had pulled her hand into her chest and held it against the cover of the fantasy resting in the crook of her arm.  Her fingers lightly caressed the raised letters of the title and the author’s name. She had never found anything worth her time in the Self- help section, had never felt that the words within the pages were truthful. There was something unnatural about the multitude of plastic smiles and staged pictures that dripped with misleading hope. The book she was looking for could not possibly be one of these. She decided that the fantasy would have to be enough and took a right at the end of the aisle and started back to the staircase.

Halfway down the aisle lay a book, carelessly dropped or having fallen from its place on the shelf after clumsy hands left it unbalanced near the edge, a victim to the quiet puffs of wind as people passed it by. She wasn’t interested in what it was, but the fact that someone had just left it there, lying on the floor, irked her. She walked over to it and leaned down. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and she prepared herself for the snap of a shock as her fingers touched the back cover and cream-colored pages.

The sound of the spark was amazing, the flash brighter than any of the others, and, for an instant, Angela felt real anger at the new manager for putting the books in such jeopardy. The next instant brought nothing but terror as her vision cleared and she found herself surrounded by paper towering above her head, the black letters of gigantic words leaning against her, the sharp edges and points of the text like razors and teeth. She screamed and the sound disappeared into the paper, muffled and muted and lost.

 
~ Peace and good reading