The continued story of S...
So if you missed the beginning of this story, please click back and get a recap of where we are....
S opened the door.
And what I saw at that point was a woman with a cane, overweighted with what I would soon find out was more than just physical body weight, but rather a conglomerate of events that have happened to her that caused the cane to bear more than just the burdens carried by physique.
I brought the package into the tiny kitchen that consisted of a sink filled with disgusting dishes, cat bowls on the floor and three steps to escape into the bedroom slash living room. S, upon my first sight of her, used her cane dependently as she looked shamefully to the floor through her rose tinted sunglasses in which she never took off during the entire duration of my stay. I placed the package on the kitchen floor as S turned to sit on the white 4-post bed that dominated her combo room. I shut the door behind me quietly.
"Just place it over there," she declared and I obliged. Please keep in mind that this was my first encounter with S other than the numerous phone calls earlier that day.
She sat there on the bed with the four posts enveloping the two mattresses that sat on the floor. On the bed, there were towels, many pillows and a sprawled out afghan that she must've been using for comfort as she read her book that was now spread flat on the bed.
As I said earlier, S warned me of the clutter that would takeover her apartment and as I looked around, I found not much clutter other than the stacks and towers of books that seemed to act as her wallpaper. Everything from biographies to mysteries, hardcover and paperbacks were to simply put it, everywhere. I, as the writer in the room couldn't help but notice all the books, intrigued that reading books was still a form of entertainment for many people like S.
I also couldn't help but notice that there wasn't a single piece of technology in the apartment at all save for an alarm clock on the nightstand that matched the 4-post bed. Just books, and plenty of them.
Eager to tell S that I was a writer and her fascination of books was reassuring to me that I would someday find a career that was plentiful was slighted as I realized that my books are only available in ebook format and S would simply have no use for a digital copy that she would never read.
I began the conversation with a different approach in which I received a very solid and confident answer.
"How many books have you read?" I asked not expecting an answer, but S gave me a very close roundabout answer.
"The library just sent me letter stating the amount of books I have borrowed. The number they gave me was over 6,000 borrowed."
"Please don't tell me all these books belong to the library," I said, jokingly.
"No, of course not, but when you've lost all your family and you are damn near crippled with cancer, you have nothing left to do but to obtain from the lives of others," she said. "That is the reasoning I have for all these books."
To be continued...
If you are reading this, take this as an invite to subscribe to my blog which may or may not contain stories, updates on my writing process of my newest work (which is seemingly taking longer than expected) and/or critiques of other works I am reading.
Please enjoy this blog and pass it along. Feel free to check out my published works which there are links below my signature. If you are interested in my works but would prefer to see them in paperback, let me know, I am considering publishing my works in paperback format to expand my audience.
As Always, thanks for reading,
Nicholas McGirr
Life of Death
Book One: The Growing Dim Project
S opened the door.
And what I saw at that point was a woman with a cane, overweighted with what I would soon find out was more than just physical body weight, but rather a conglomerate of events that have happened to her that caused the cane to bear more than just the burdens carried by physique.
I brought the package into the tiny kitchen that consisted of a sink filled with disgusting dishes, cat bowls on the floor and three steps to escape into the bedroom slash living room. S, upon my first sight of her, used her cane dependently as she looked shamefully to the floor through her rose tinted sunglasses in which she never took off during the entire duration of my stay. I placed the package on the kitchen floor as S turned to sit on the white 4-post bed that dominated her combo room. I shut the door behind me quietly.
"Just place it over there," she declared and I obliged. Please keep in mind that this was my first encounter with S other than the numerous phone calls earlier that day.
She sat there on the bed with the four posts enveloping the two mattresses that sat on the floor. On the bed, there were towels, many pillows and a sprawled out afghan that she must've been using for comfort as she read her book that was now spread flat on the bed.
As I said earlier, S warned me of the clutter that would takeover her apartment and as I looked around, I found not much clutter other than the stacks and towers of books that seemed to act as her wallpaper. Everything from biographies to mysteries, hardcover and paperbacks were to simply put it, everywhere. I, as the writer in the room couldn't help but notice all the books, intrigued that reading books was still a form of entertainment for many people like S.
I also couldn't help but notice that there wasn't a single piece of technology in the apartment at all save for an alarm clock on the nightstand that matched the 4-post bed. Just books, and plenty of them.
Eager to tell S that I was a writer and her fascination of books was reassuring to me that I would someday find a career that was plentiful was slighted as I realized that my books are only available in ebook format and S would simply have no use for a digital copy that she would never read.
I began the conversation with a different approach in which I received a very solid and confident answer.
"How many books have you read?" I asked not expecting an answer, but S gave me a very close roundabout answer.
"The library just sent me letter stating the amount of books I have borrowed. The number they gave me was over 6,000 borrowed."
"Please don't tell me all these books belong to the library," I said, jokingly.
"No, of course not, but when you've lost all your family and you are damn near crippled with cancer, you have nothing left to do but to obtain from the lives of others," she said. "That is the reasoning I have for all these books."
To be continued...
If you are reading this, take this as an invite to subscribe to my blog which may or may not contain stories, updates on my writing process of my newest work (which is seemingly taking longer than expected) and/or critiques of other works I am reading.
Please enjoy this blog and pass it along. Feel free to check out my published works which there are links below my signature. If you are interested in my works but would prefer to see them in paperback, let me know, I am considering publishing my works in paperback format to expand my audience.
As Always, thanks for reading,
Nicholas McGirr
Life of Death
Book One: The Growing Dim Project
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