Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Seung-Hui Jeong / Essay 4 / Thursday 1-3 PM

Mom first told me about this bookstore that she had seen during one of her many walks. It was almost three months later when I finally visited this bookstore mom so raved about. The paved streets and the pedestrian overpass were gray with old cement. It had rained that morning and there were still murky rainwater puddles here and there. Swinging my umbrella in one hand, I padded through the street with a slight grimace until I saw a shiny blue shop right in between many gray ones. It wasn't shiny, in fact it looked rather old in faded graying blue. But to me, it seemed like Christmas. As I pushed open the door I heard the sound of gentle bells as breathed in the smell of coffee. On the right of the entrance were small tables and cushy chairs where a few people were drinking coffee out of mix-matched mugs and eating tiny sandwiches while they read. As I looked around with wide eyes, I slowly came to the realization that this wasn't any regular bookstore, it was a secondhand one. It was my first time in a secondhand store of anything and I could feel the excitement creeping in as I forced myself to calm down. A skinny old man with a scruffy beard in a flannel shirt and faded jeans greeted me with a smile. There were shelves of weathered books lining every inch of the walls. At the back of the shop there was a staircase that led towards a second floor. There were stacks of children's books on every step and I could smell wood and the staleness of books when I arrived on the second floor.
It wasn't big - the entire bookstore wasn't, but books were stacked from floor to ceiling and towers of stacked books that had nowhere to go were on the floor. I was careful as I toed my way to the back on the creaking wood floors to not topple over any of them. There was a huge circular window that was hidden behind a shelf. The sunlight was shining through the shelves and created a patch of bright warmth onto the dark wooden floors and the shelves. In the sunlight, I could see dust floating through the air. Time seemed to have stopped and I felt strangely at ease as my heart bubbled up with contentment.

It was at this bookstore that I bought volumes one and two of much battered Anna Karenina and a browning Les Misérables that was slightly torn at the edges. It quickly became my favorite bookstore and I bought brand new books only if this secondhand store didn't have them in stock.

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