Digital doesn’t get it done. OG readers know.

The Bookstore Owner

It’s 11 p.m. Dark, no stars. Soft rain patters against the windows of the small town corner bookstore. The proprietor, a graying, middle-aged man, old and weary before his time, starts locking up.

Another bad day. Only one sale. To a little old lady who was looking for that “cute sparkly vampire” book for her granddaughter. He sold her Dracula instead. Maybe he could save just one Zoomer.

No else even came inside. All too busy staring down at their phones as they walked past. Doomscrolling TikTok, cat memes, and God knows what else. These glowing screens might as well be crack pipes, he thinks, wiping a distressed brow.

The proprietor lifts his tired eyes to the black abyss of a sky as he closes the shades. He used to be filled with optimism. He was going to change the world. He was going to be somebody. A bookseller. A real bookseller. He was going to nourish the world with the printed word. With physical books. Sure, they were dusty, old, and smelled funny. But they were real. Imprinted with human touch and ownership. A physical book is something that says, “I exist, I matter!”

Except nobody wants real books anymore. They just want their glowing screens. They want their Kindles with their “e-paper.” Ha! As if paper could be mimicked on a screen. What next? E-food? E-water?

Now the bills are piling up. Rent’s overdue. A utility company is howling at the door. Bankruptcy looms. It’s over, he thinks. Time to admit defeat once and for all. The glowing screens won. Damn them. Damn them all to hell.

Then he hears footsteps. A shadowy figure suddenly appears. It sort of reminds him of how Nick Fury came in at the end of the first Iron Man movie in the post-credits scene.

In fact, that’s exactly what it reminds him of.

“You think you’re the only bookseller struggling to keep the lights on? You’re part of a much bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.”

“No, I’m fully aware bookstores are a failing business model,” he says. “My ex-wife reminded me everyday.”

I step fully into the light. A stack of books under my arm. An eye patch placed crookedly on my face.

“Is that eye patch real, or did you just put it on for effect?” he asks.

“Never mind that. I’m putting a team together. I mean, I’m putting a library together.”

The proprietor glances at my books. Lost Horizon. The Caine Mutiny. Is that really Fahrenheit 451? A single tear forms in his eye.

A small smile cracks his cynical, grim visage. His first one in ages.

Maybe there is hope, afterall.

Buying physical books may not be as dramatic as saving the world, but there’s nothing like actual “flesh and blood” print over e-books or words off a glowing screen.

Reading words off a screen feels more like scanning than actual reading. Though that’s probably just a generational bias. If you grew up staring into the pixelated prism of an iPad, you might prefer the digital version over the real thing.

I have a Kindle. It mainly sits there and collects dust. I only used it for a few digital books I bought. But the experience is not the same. Even if it is more convenient to hold a thin piece of plastic instead of a heavy, awkward book. Perhaps one I’ll finally get used to scanning the fake paper of an e-reader into my brain like a self-checkout machine.

I keep most of my books in storage these days. I like to keep things simple for the time being. Someday I’ll have a house to put them in. Someday I’ll have them properly displayed in my own library.

Jerry Seinfeld once joked that everything we own is just on an eventual jouney to the dumpster. Maybe having boxes and boxes of books like I do will one day prove a burden to family members. I have new books and old books from childhood. I’ve never thrown a book out. I’ve saved everyone I’ve ever had. One day after I’m gone they’ll be sitting on a plastic table at a garage sale. Donated to a library. Or just thrown in the dumpster. But they’ll have served their purpose, at least for me.