She closed the book, placed it on a high shelf, and made her way to the door. Once outside, she inhaled deeply and was immediately invigorated by the cold, fresh air. Feeling free as an inmate released from prison, she sauntered dreamily down the street, not looking back at the bookshop she’d just departed.

Twenty minutes earlier she entered the quaint old shop, by chance. She’d missed the 4:19 and had a 25 minute wait for the next bus. Her jacket was too light for the chilly weather, and she headed for the Starbucks down the block. As she walked by a small bookshop, on a whim, she stopped, turned, and stepped in. She’d duck in there for a little while and spare her budget the cost of a latte.

The shop bore no semblance to those well-lit, modern franchises with the latest bestsellers artfully and strategically displayed. A musty smell assaulted her as soon as she entered the dingy place, crowded with countless old volumes stuffed on tall shelves separated by narrow aisles. The proprietor, engrossed in a paperback, didn’t seem to notice her arrival. Although it looked small and modest from the outside, the interior of the shop felt enormous, and every spare inch of it was occupied by books. Like a waif lost in a forest of tall trees, she stepped hesitantly through the towering stacks of books, glancing at titles and lightly touching the spines of books with her finger as she glided by.

She plucked out books at random and leafed through the pages, taking in a sentence here and there. She wandered through shelves of fiction, history, science and philosophy. There were books written in English, German, French and Spanish and some were in languages she didn’t even recognize. It was overwhelming. Surrounding her was the wisdom of the world. Everything that people had thought and felt and learned was recorded in those tomes.

Maybe it was the staleness of the air or the dizzying rows of books all around her, but she began to feel faint, and her legs became wobbly. She tottered over to a rickety stool beside a besmirched window at the rear of the shop, and lowered herself onto it. Peering through the grimy window, she could barely make out the figures wrapped in coats hurrying along, busily going about their lives. She turned back to the towering shelves, and surveyed the acres of books around her.

So many people had spent so much of their lives struggling with ideas and summoning the words to fill those books that now lay unread and forgotten, moldering in this gloomy cavern of a bookshop. She opened her purse and slipped out a small, dainty volume. It had taken her years to write the little book, and it was the pride of her life, the thing that gave meaning to her existence. The time and effort it had taken, the sacrifices she made to create it! She caressed the vanity edition that had cost her dearly—the money spent was the least of it—to produce.

She checked her watch. It was time to leave to catch her bus, and meet the publisher who’d expressed interest in her work. She looked up at the shelves looming above her, then down at her book. She opened it and gently turned its delicate leaves. After a moment’s hesitation, she made a decision, and then her face relaxed into a smile.