April 1st

Today the sun rose exceptionally slowly. Maybe it was afraid to return.

April 2nd

I opened the bookstore at 9am. Not one soul stepped through the threshold until 11. I had some time to talk to the books. They wouldn’t stop sneezing, irritated by thick layers of dust, so it was difficult to understand a word they said. At 8pm, I closed the door and tried to ignore the sound of muffled sneezing.

April 3rd

I cried.

April 4th

The bookstore buzzed, our most popular section no longer fantasy, but rather, survival.

April 7th

Everyday our customers run thin. We’re out of books on how to’s and do it yourself’s. I never figured ‘how to survive in the wilderness’ would be a bestseller. The bookstore is an almost-empty  jug of syrup; someone tipped it over, now everyone trickles out.

April 8th

When she walked in my heart rate doubled. Is that was a ‘double take’ means? The books laughed with disdain. Jane Eyre shuddered in pity. I wonder if she heard.

April 9th

She didn’t.

April 11th

The threats came today. No one left their houses. I opened the bookstore at 9am.

April 12th

Not one soul stepped through the threshold until 1pm. I thought I was the only one who found comfort among the books. I was wrong.

April 14th

She keeps coming back, day after day. I can hear the books cry when she leaves. The air is damp. She gives us hope.

April 15th

The first bombs came today. The books were fine, but I worried about her. Was she among the rubble, or hidden safely like me?

April 17th

I worried for forty eight hours. My nails are bitten down. Today she came into the bookstore just before closing. She bought a book from the fantasy section, and then she kissed me.

April 18th

There is so much death around me, but I’ve never felt more alive.

April 19th

She comes when I open the store. She leaves after I close. She gives me everything the books never have.

April 20th

She’s my only customer now. No one dares to step outside their front stoop.

April 21st

We spend all our days together, wrapped in pages of mystery books, biographies, historical fiction. She wants to write a book that someone else could wrap themselves in one day. She writes my story with her hands when she touches me. We sleep among the words.

April 23rd

The second bombing came today. I held her in my arms as she trembled. The books shook with fear this time. We couldn’t hide in the fantasy section forever.

April 24th

I cried.

April 26th

I haven’t heard her voice in two days. Her words are beginning to fade. The bookstore is a desert. I am scared. The books have given up,

April 27th

December 28th

I passed by the old bookstore today, on my way to work. A pile of snow-dusted rubble where beauty once was, where stories were told. Our story. I think they’re putting an apartment building up there now.

I wish the books had given him the protection he deserved.