Snippet: Bookstore
I stalk between the aisles of paperbacks, hunting ghosts. A lonely, bored bookstore clerk shadows me, the first possible customer in hours. The end-caps make traversal difficult. Toys and coloring books leap off acrylic stands intended for new hardcovers. The center aisle has been crowded with regurgitating knock-offs of the latest hot titles. Maybe my memory is fogged with nostalgia, but I remember a time when the books held the roof up. The whisper of turning pages, the clunk of paperbacks sliding back into place on shelving. The smell of new ink on new pages. The anticipation of discovery. Cover facing out, something foreign and captivating, ripe for exploration. These are the ghosts I seek, ready to part with MSRP, even, to find something to rekindle the old feelings. But the fluorescent lights split the shadows, drowning the ghosts in high-efficiency omni green. The covers appear sickly, and chase me toward the exit, empty handed. Author's note: These snippets are unedited free-writing exercises that I use as a way to shift my brain into a creative state. I use Lynda Barry's What It Is YouTube timed exercises (usually 9 minutes worth of writing) for these. They are handwritten in a composition notebook, and then typed up here. As I transcribe them, I do tiny grammar and spelling checks, but the overall "clarity" (if you can call it that) of the exercise is left as-is.