Bed Bath and Bodyworks of Literature

The other day I was out shopping for Christmas presents and I thought it might be fun to visit the bookstore. As a kid, visiting the local Chapters always resulted in coming home with a new book. I'd read on the bus, during car rides, before bed and at school, while Dad watched the news and Mom thought about separating. We didn't go that often but it's something nice that I remember.

In grade school I would sit beside my friend on the bus and as he read his book, I would read the pages I could make out while peering over his shoulder. Only getting half the story, waiting for him to finish the other page before continuing. We never acknowledged this was happening.

In the back of the Indigo store is the fiction section. To get there I walk past self-help, graphic-novel, teen, and food&culture. There's an employee, blue shirt, long brown hair, masked. We make eye contact, "need help finding anything sir?", they are paid to say this. I tell them about my interest in literature. I feel bad for not elaborating but I wonder how they'll handle this.

I neglect to mention how all the sonnets I've been reading follow Iambic Pentameter. How they're all love poems. How every writer puts pen to paper in hopes of getting laid because of it. That the advantage literature has over Michelle Obama's Becoming is that it can help with an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. I wouldn't dare admit this to the friendly Indigo employee.

Do you have any books on alcoholism?
Do you have any books that will stop the cancer from spreading?
Do you have any books to help me sleep at night?

Maybe we should make a trip to the self-help section, I heard Mark Manson has an insatiable desire to teach me The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. The employee slowly walks away, having failed to make a recommendation and just wishing to get on with their day instead of dealing with me. Understandable. I am the widowed grandparent who only goes shopping to have conversations with the cashiers. Every institution doubles as day-care if you look close enough.

A malignant addiction is one that purports to solve a problem but actually makes it worse. If the purpose of literature is to make me feel less lonely, but in order to do so I must spend hours and hours reading alone, is it just a delusion? I should just give up on this whole reading thing. Everyone I know has seen Breaking Bad and none of them have picked up a book willingly since they were kids. Is that why we feel so far apart?

I walked into Bath & Bodyworks and asked the employee for a candle that "smells like my house is burning down, not like a fruit bouqet". I needed something to help set the mood. The employee's eyes lit up as they said: "I have just the thing".