A little bell rang as I pushed open the door in the back of the bookstore. The familiar smell of old paper and dust greeted my nose. The most notable thing, of course, was the sight of thousands of books stacked on their wooden shelves. Music played, and it matched everything else in the store with its ancience.I decided to head to the front of the store and start from there, so as to be able to walk through, describing it, and maybe make sense of it all. The place was like a labyrinth, it's wall made of books. One could get lost in the maze.
The old man who runs the place greeted me as I walked through. He's a friendly enough old man with white hair that seems to be yellowing just like the pages in his store, a little trim mustache, and eyes that smile behind square, black-rimmed eyeglasses. I told him that I just wanted to observe his shop for an English paper. He told me not to write about the mess.
I made it to the front of the store, the 48th street side that nobody uses. Directly in front of me were loads of records, everything from Mitch Ryder and Willie Nile to a record entitled "Gypsys, Tramps, & Thieves." Boxes littered the surrounding floor.
To the left was the Children's section, characterized by bright colors, a fun atmosphere, and generally thinner spines. A little chair stood lonely against a shelf, and looked like it would fit only the teeniest of children. To the right, a little piece of printed paper labeled the section "General Fiction."
As I walked on, turning to the left again, I came upon a little nook, a closet of a section with a doorway made of bookshelves that you could enter through and move a few feet down to you left or your right in the enclosed area. This section was the Classics. A big, white book entitled The Yale Shakespeare sat on the floor--the biggest volume I've ever seen! And ornate Harvard Classics lined the top shelf on the back wall of the little hidden section.
I walked out of the closet and turned to the right this time where I was greeted with books that had metallic, flowing letters that spelled out titles such as Almost a Lady and Savage Hope. A poster of a cloud and little white birds flying across a blue sky designated the Romance section.
And this was only the beginning of my journey through the maze of knowledge...
