Friday, February 5, 2010

books in brown paper bags

 
days of bookstores and apple-milk are finally coming true.

if ever you stand (exactly) in the middle of our bookstore, you will find that beneath the wooden floorboards, there is a cafe: one where certain dreamers spend long hours sampling exotic fare and sip cups of vittoria coffee. if you look out the long vertical windows barely reaching your knees, you may see a certain white cloud, fluffy and slow. the left-most window frames a pretty streetlamp, which it is in love with. but the streetlamp is shyly bowed towards the park, away from you.

i chose, yesterday, to dance awkwardly in the middle of our bookstore - one that is yet-to-be. the room echoes, the walls bare, electricity barely flows through its veins. we are waiting, for that saturday morning - for its pulse to finally arrive. we are nervous; we are excited; we keep our fingers crossed; we ran a half circle around the room (two people, on only a pair of legs). he stops by the window in the middle (the one where you can see the cloud), i smiled at the cloud. once, or twice, we observe the other room. the creepy one with the sink, the disabled window, and the bathrooms. our favourite is still the room with the wooden floorboards. we like the stairway too (the stairs aren't too steep for tiny children). steepness is very important as small, excited people should try not to miss a step while skipping two-steps-a-time. we have big plans in our heads, too huge for small hands like ours. but we believe in the cloud.

so if ever you decide to stand in the middle of our bookstore, and place your ears against the wooden floorboards, you may hear the tinkle of teaspoons and porcelain cups. and you can probably imagine a handsome dreamer sipping vittoria coffee, and a window which is very much in love with a streetlamp.

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written in 05 Oct 2005
24 days before the birth of BooksActually bookstore at 125A Telok Ayer Street.

 

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