At the book bazaar the shelves are closely packed, almost as tight as sitting on the seats on a cut price airline flight – jam packed. Cardboard categories conjure imaginings from the air. The eye follows a plumb-line to the ground. Packed in among the packed in books there’s the musty smell of age. Opening the yellowing pages of books from yesteryear can reveal scribblings and notes embedded on pages – the thoughts of a ‘once life’ somebody had way back when – fascinating. Those yellowed pages almost want to crumble in your hand they seem as fragile as dried out lavender.

The bookshelves seem to each be doing their part to keep the world on their shoulders. I think I can see their well tuned muscles straining just a bit – caught at a constant tension the way those thick steel cables hold up a bridge – reminds me of ‘the thinker’ and in a way isn’t that what they are? Each of these shelves holds an armada of information and they’re waiting for us to come and indulge in this take way food of the literary world. Feed our hungry minds that long for learning, the blanket of learning we can wrap around cold minds we develop to get through the routines of the day. Minds that need to come alive again after work-time immersion and drowning of creativity. Maybe I could start a campaign to free the shelves, to walk right out of this prison they’re trapped in and lead a march down Chapel street. Give each shelf a banner instead of a category, have them marching behind me. But, maybe they like it here in this close nestled family atmosphere, so familiar. Maybe this is their freedom, being nestled here together where they know one another and are known. We passing customers, we passengers are the only strokes of affection they need. They give up a part of themselves like an organ when we buy a book, but a new one will be along soon.