You see Gow had always been the lonely book on the shelf. He thought of himself as special and slightly odd. His spine was slightly cracked and his pages were somewhat yellowed, but he liked that about himself. Gow liked the fact that hands had come to open his covers and had left him blotched with the soot of life. And that certain privileged eyes had read his words and had come to know him, even if only in the most minor of fashions. Sometimes, like the one in current description, he would cry. He would cry tears filled with tiny bits of cotton fiber and swirls of thirty-year-old black ink. The tears would run down onto the oak plank and along the notched grooves of the wood and would wind themselves back behind the shelves upon which he sat. Never knowing how high he was from the ground he always imagined that his tears fell forever. Gow hoped that they just continued on falling and holding those tiny pieces of himself that no one ever cared to ask about.
But alas, what was this? The Red Cart.
The red cart carried perspective friends. Once, during one of the many summer months, of which he could not specifically remember, the red cart ushered in a full volume of Mark Twain short stories. Gow always found it very exciting when new arrivals entered the shop; it meant new conversations and new bonds. A new way of thinking and maybe, just maybe, a new plan for becoming free once again. Gow had been sitting in his spot on his shelf for twelve years and in his mind this was much too long a stint for an individual such as himself to stay dormant and un-used. But, to Gow’s great disappointment, the Mark Twain Shorts were drab and dull and a pure bore to converse with, little to no help on the freedom front.
He sat, quietly crying, in between his unread fellows and sulked. He was sad. But this was not any normal kind of sad, it was a very real and deep writhing type of sad, the type of sad that some of his friends held within their pages. His pages became crinkled and wavy with the wetness of his ink-ridden tears. A voice from the shelf above spoke, “Stop sniveling you lil’ begga.” And another from below, “Crying is for the weak, are you weak son?” But Gow just ignored them and went on crying. But then, from what seemed to be right beside him Gow heard the most beautiful voice that had ever graced his pages.
“Why are you crying?” whispered the voice.
“Stop mocking me you un-read witch.” said Gow.
“I’m no witch, I’m a Jane Austen.” said Lady Susan. “And besides, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
Gow choked and then coughed on his own tears and began to laugh.
“Was that an attempt at a joke my dear?” Gow chuckled.
“I suppose it was.” Lady Susan smiled and blushed.
Was this freedom? Had he been lying to himself this whole time? Gow quickly realized that being picked up off the shelf was not the only form of freedom of which he could attain. Freedom was bigger than open spaces and sprawling coffee tables set inside well kept English homes. It was laughter. It was love.
