I can picture it in my head: a wall lined up with shelves of books I collected, a chair facing the window with a lap blanket neatly folded on top of it, and a coffee table angled right next to it. On a rainy day or may be just a cold evening, I would randomly pick a book off my shelf to read. It wouldn’t matter which one – all of them had been, at one point or the other, my favorite. And then I would run my thumb slowly over the well worn out pages until I make a small indent with my finger. I would ponder for a moment, why I had stopped there. But there really wasn’t any answer. I know so much of it already, it wouldn’t matter where I start from. Forgoing the internal debate I would open the page where I had stopped. I would wrap my fingers around its cover, settle down on the chair with a steaming mug of coffee, and start to read.
The hustle of the city I loved growing up in would just be a thick, plain glass sheet away. If I could take my eyes off the book I was being woven into, I would look outside the four paneled window and enjoy perhaps the raindrops thrashing against it, threatening to break into my sanctuary. I might enjoy the cool wind blowing the hair off my face and leaving a trail of goose bumps on my flesh as I hastily reach out for my lap blanket placed near my foot stool.
But on days I just couldn’t stray, I would sit beside the busy city racing through the alleyways of its life as I was being leisurely captivated into a world of my choosing. I would love that quietness of the world I reveled in contrasted by the noise of the world I would eventually come back to. But then, it would not be that time. For then, I would sweep through the pages erecting a virtual world where I came in contact with the characters I learned to embrace. All the while, the bitter coffee, the warm coffee would linger its taste in my mouth, keeping me alert and keeping me going.
Ah what a blend of aroma – old paperbacks, newly bound novels and flowing smell of coffee would be a treat to my olfactory senses.
Amar Shobdo 