No Frigate Like a Book
Title: No Frigate Like a Book
Author: bugs
Word Count: 300
I tend the bookshelves, straightening the volumes, replacing discarded books left carelessly strewn on the reading room tables. It’s peaceful work, something I never would have admitted to my father that I yearned to do.
One woman has come every day for three weeks. She keeps peeking at me out of the corner of her eye. I pretend not to notice.
She intrigues me as well. Not many people choose an older version of their body. I’ve chosen my oldest self too.
She finally speaks. “Can you show me where the Dickinson poetry is?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She winces. “Laura. I never want anyone to call me Ma’am again.”
“Do you know Dickinson’s work?”
“I thought I did. But a friend showed me some new things.”
“I haven’t read enough of her work.” I hear the echo of past reproaches.
The woman accepts the slim volume I offer. “She fits a time and a place, I think. Now is that time and place.”
I leave her to read in a shaft of golden light, her hair flickering flames as she bends over the book.
She returns every day; we make idle chit-chat. There’s something about me that interests her but she never reveals it.
One day, I hear an unmistakable voice behind me. “I shoulda known I’d find you here.”
I’m paralyzed. Twenty-four years old forever, and still afraid of my father’s judgment.
But he’s not speaking to me.
She looks up slowly from her reading. A smile quirks her lips.
“Took you long enough,” she reproaches/teases him.
I step back into the shadowed stacks, too many uncertainties roiling.
She stops me with a glance. “Look who I found here,” she says, reaching out to draw me into their embrace.
I choose again, this time a boy’s body. Daddy, I whisper.
~~end
Author: bugs
Word Count: 300
I tend the bookshelves, straightening the volumes, replacing discarded books left carelessly strewn on the reading room tables. It’s peaceful work, something I never would have admitted to my father that I yearned to do.
One woman has come every day for three weeks. She keeps peeking at me out of the corner of her eye. I pretend not to notice.
She intrigues me as well. Not many people choose an older version of their body. I’ve chosen my oldest self too.
She finally speaks. “Can you show me where the Dickinson poetry is?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She winces. “Laura. I never want anyone to call me Ma’am again.”
“Do you know Dickinson’s work?”
“I thought I did. But a friend showed me some new things.”
“I haven’t read enough of her work.” I hear the echo of past reproaches.
The woman accepts the slim volume I offer. “She fits a time and a place, I think. Now is that time and place.”
I leave her to read in a shaft of golden light, her hair flickering flames as she bends over the book.
She returns every day; we make idle chit-chat. There’s something about me that interests her but she never reveals it.
One day, I hear an unmistakable voice behind me. “I shoulda known I’d find you here.”
I’m paralyzed. Twenty-four years old forever, and still afraid of my father’s judgment.
But he’s not speaking to me.
She looks up slowly from her reading. A smile quirks her lips.
“Took you long enough,” she reproaches/teases him.
I step back into the shadowed stacks, too many uncertainties roiling.
She stops me with a glance. “Look who I found here,” she says, reaching out to draw me into their embrace.
I choose again, this time a boy’s body. Daddy, I whisper.
~~end