2019-03-13 - Emotion

I skim the surface because I can. Because it helps me understand the reason they came in here and how I can help. Everyone comes in here with a reason, even if they aren't as intunely aware of it as I am. It's right there on the surface and all I have to do is skim it from the top; digging deeper only brings unwanted attention anyway.

The middle-aged woman from the pharmacy is in here again, weaving her way through the rows of books and collectibles. All that comes off the top of her is curiousity; I don't bother with curiousity anymore. It brings a lot of people through the door and they hardly ever buy anything, they are just here to look - either at the items for sale, or at me, though never directly. So I sit behind the counter and I flip another page in my book, my eyes cast down and my feelers out. If something catches her eye and curiousity gives way to something else, I'll know and I can act. But with her, it never does. She'll stand by the curio cabinet and pretend to be interested in the dolls, but she's looking at me through the mirror. Maybe it's to see if I'll crack up right in front of her.

She leaves in twenty minutes. I timed it on my phone, this was a shorter stop than usual. She made it to the curio cabinet in record time, I suppose. I could move the dolls next time, but she'd just find interest in whatever else I put in there instead. The shop is empty again and quiet, I push my book away and reach for my earbuds, but the bell above the door dings before I can fit them into my ear, so I abandon them back on the desk and stretch to look over the counter's top to the person who just walked in. I reach out to skim the surface, and.. Odd.

I know this guy, he comes in once a week and there are times when I see him out and about. What's on the surface never changes for him, just deep and unending sorrow, overwhelming grief. I've felt it so many times now that it simply feels like apart of him, he wears it like a second skin. There is no way to fix grief, not really, but I know that something kitsh will temporarily dim the pain, more so if there's some kind of duck or goose pattern to it. I had just the thing today, a white goose ceramic sculpture that someone had in their front yard. I got it from an estate sale just the other day.

But this is not sorrow that I feel from him today. This is not never-ending grief. Instead there is shame, unyielding and unstoppable, it makes me slink back into my chair and feel the pit of it there in my stomach. He weaves his way through the narrow maze of shelving units and furniture, to come and stop at the counter. I look up and into the saddest blue eyes I've ever seen, but all I feel is shame.

"Morning," I fit a smile onto my lips, though it's not wide enough to dimple my cheeks. He lays his hands on the counter's surface and scratches at the wood grain. "Morning," his voice is deep, rough, like he's not slept in a thousand years. "I'm uh.. looking for a book. Something specific. Hemingway?"

It's such an odd thing to be ashamed of, looking for a book. Is that what he is ashamed of? I could dig deeper, but I don't - I just tilt my head in a nod and lift myself up far enough out of my chair to point. "Over there. Mind the clowns," it is a poor joke. He doesn't laugh. He just mumbles a thank you and turns, following the line of my finger to the shelf where Hemingway lives with the circus. I should cast my eyes down, but instead I stretch far enough onto the edge of my seat to watch him as he touches each of the books with a knuckle, reading the titles.

I'm quiet as he searches, straightening the stack of books that threatens to fall on the edge of the desk. But I see him brush his fingers along the spine of a book, knuckle it out of the case and hold it in his hands. As he opens the cover, the shame is gone, replaced by the sudden thunderous roll of desire. It's such a sudden transformation that it makes me fall back onto the chair, my hand to my throat, my breath hitching. This was a private thing, I shouldn't be invading. This feeling is not for me, I know that. I doubt it is for the book either. No, this is deeper, intimate. My fingers twitch at the desk, pinch an invisible dial and give it a slight nudge. Just a tick up, it's all I can do anyway.

I know I shouldn't, but I've never felt him feel anything but pain. Doesn't he deserve a bit of fire, a good feeling to replace the bad? He always looks so sad. I dare to peek over the counter again and see him, his back straightening suddenly, and my pulse is hammering in my neck and I wonder if his is, too. But the change that happens next is quick, drastic - he shoves the book back into the shelf, and the flame is instantly extinguished. Shame returns, coming off of him in such thick, palpable waves that I hardly need to skim his surface in order to feel it deep in my bones. It makes me want to cry, to curl up in a ball beneath my desk and shut out the world. He doesn't look at me; he just leaves the book behind and walks out the door. It slams shut behind him. The brass bell above the door goes ding with his exit.

The shame leaves with him, but I still feel something there in the pit of my stomach. My own shame, perhaps. I take a deep breath and I rise from my seat, winding my way through the maze of shelves and needful things to the door. I flip the sign - open now reads CLOSED, and I click the lock. And then I go to the cabinet and remove the book that he was looking at, the one that is now out of place from being so rudely reinserted. In Our Time, it's just a collection of short stories - how can something so innocent create such a response? I turn the book in my hand, I flip through the pages. But there's nothing, not even handwritten notes in the margin. It's just a book.

But I take it with me anyway. I tuck it under the crook of my arm and I duck under the velvet rope to head up the stairs, to the over-sized armchair by the window. I read as I watch the rain splatter upon the glass. And as I read, I read to her, my Alice, and I feel a quiet sense of happy.