Wormhole Down the Street

Capitol Hill Books

It was hidden at the end of the street. A used bookstore, modestly sized, with a little man of elderly age reading at the counter. His face featured abnormally bushy brows.

A bell chimed as Eileen cracked the door open. Books of all sizes lined the shelves, spreading both horizontally and vertically. Newspaper clippings were scattered across the furniture. The clutter of the space felt secure.

Like the home of a stranger, Eileen thought.

She took her time poking around the shelves, plucking out interesting titles or familiar authors. In the end she settled on a biography.

After she paid, the little man at the counter handed back her purchase in silence. “Thank you,” she told him.

A week after her first visit, Eileen returned to the store again.

And again.

And again.

Something about its air drew her in. The shelves implied an infinite collection of possibilities, not only in the contents behind the covers, but also the moments the books themselves were witness to.

Once, she discovered an opera ticket from Sweden tucked between the pages. Most likely it had been used as a bookmark. To think — this book had visited faraway lands she herself had never seen. How many hands had it passed through? The previous owner of this paperback — what kind of person were they?

Plus, it was a pity to leave behind all the books she’d considered but hadn't bought. She fell into the habit of reading them on the spot. The store wasn't spacious, but it held enough room for a few worn chairs here and there. Sporadically her time there spanned more than a few hours. Eileen couldn't help it. There was a sense that the clock’s flow stretched, that time belonged to her.

It was hardly polite for her to consume entire books in store without buying, but the little man at the counter never said a word. In fact, while customers browsed the shelves, he hardly looked up. Instead, he read. It was almost as if his nose were a compass needle; his book, the North Pole.

Often they’d be the only two in the store, each with their own book, independent entities orbiting in their own worlds. The little old man acknowledged Eileen only when she needed to pay at the counter. Always, her eyes would drift to his abnormally bushy brows. They were like the furry centerpiece in the middle of a room.

It was odd, she thought, there was so little hair on top of his head. Yet how were his eyebrows so thick?

Various shades of gold spread throughout the trees. The air became crisp. Fall had set in.

Eileen rushed inside the store. The heating was a welcome relief. Without gloves, her hands felt they had frozen ten times over.

Today she didn't have much time to linger. Striding to the history section, she picked off a thin hardback that she’d set her eyes on the last time. By now the store map had been etched in her mind, so she had no trouble navigating the clutter of the layout, bringing the book back to the counter with no movement wasted.

Again today, the little old man checked out the purchase without lifting his vision. This time, however, something had shifted. Usually cleared, today the counter had a single book resting on its wooden surface: 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami.

The title intrigued. The book laid at her fingertips, carrying a sense that, in that moment, it was meant for her. Eileen picked it up. She asked the man, “Can I add this to the order?”

The little old man tilted his head up. He nodded.

1Q84 had her hooked. Each time she cracked the cover, Eileen felt she had plunged into a foggy dream. It was elegant and surreal. The characters were swept up in a very made-up world of multiple moons, but at the same time, there was something very real in them that Eileen could identify with. The portrayal of women was the only thing she struggled to accept at times.

It was the kind of book that lingered, one that left a hole once she finished. When she returned to the bookstore once again, she headed to the ‘M’ section among the fiction shelves.

No such luck. The Murakami titles were out. Not a surprise; he seemed to be popular.

Perhaps the little man at the counter would know. She went to ask.

“Excuse me, sir, have any novels by Murakami come in recently?”

He didn’t look up, but offered a slight shake of the head.

Eileen was about the turn back, disappointed, when the little man pulled out another book from beneath the counter, setting it in front of her: Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Da Chen, Oliver Sacks, Douglas Rushkoff, Yoko Ogawa.

From then on, every visit came with a new recommendation that materialized on the counter. The elderly man never said anything, but with an implicit understanding, each time, Eileen covertly added it to her purchase.

There was no pattern that strung the books together. Each magnified a different aspect of experience. Some produced a deep sorrow that made her want to weep. Other highlighted the light that glimmered in spite of such darkness. A few illuminated the literary beauty that hid in logic and molecules.

Slowly these stories accumulated on her bookshelf. It felt, as these writings collected, that she was assembling some prism of the world’s different moods. Life revealed its different faces to different people and different times. She wondered if the little old man felt the same way.

Last visit’s book was Hyperspace, Michio Kaku. Eileen hadn’t quite finished, so she brought it with her while she roamed the shelves.

Put simply, the book was mind-blowing. By force of imagination and reason, Kaku laid out the possibilities of higher dimensions in simple language.

As she gazed upon the book spines, the thought of wormholes popped up in her mind. Tunnels of contact between two points in space and time. She knew it wasn’t exactly relevant, but somehow, it seemed a fitting analogy for the bookstore. Perhaps the worlds crafted within the books were the closest she’d ever get to space-time transportation.

She glanced back at the little old man at the counter. As always, he was bent over the counter, the thick of his eyebrows eclipsing the rest of his face. Completely still.

What kind of world was he transported to now?

The question stood on her mind through check-out.

“What are you reading today?”

She watched as the eyebrows raised ever-so-slightly. Though he said nothing, he seemed surprised.

The bushy-browed man looked up. His face returned to its default blank, but still, with arms extended straight out, he lifted the book up for her to see the cover. Almost like a child, presenting their work to the teacher.

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi.

“Sounds interesting. I’ll look into it.”

“Thanks,” she added.

And it was ever so slight, but she swore, the ends of his mouth lifted into something like a smile.

They fell into a regular rhythm. He’d leave a fresh recommendation out; she’d ask about the new book he’d been reading; he’d display the title for her to see.

When she tired of keeping up with high-energy peers, Eileen retreated to the bookstore. The wormhole down the street. There her travel buddy waited. His quiet presence offered a sort of comfort, a freedom to just be. There she read. The little man did the same.

Though they never spoke, Eileen felt herself developing a sort of tenderness towards the bushy-browed man. Before, he had just been a fixture in the store. Now, he was something like a friend.

The sky that morning was broad and clear. Eileen had some free time, so she took a walk to the store.

As usual, the bushy-browed man was reading with his head down. Eileen scanned the shelves of new arrivals. Nothing caught her eye, so she went to the counter for the recommendation.

Moshi Moshi, Banana Yoshimoto. The copy was a little worn, but still in good selling condition.

Eileen asked, “How much does this cost?”

The bushy-browed man looked up. He took the book, but instead of ringing it up, he extended it towards her.

And for the first time, he broke into a grin.

It was a small grin, like a sliver of sky that peeked out behind the clouds, but it emitted a gentle warmth. A flicker of familiarity. Eileen accepted the book in her hands.

The bushy-browed man gave a stern nod, followed by a gesture to leave.

It was a gift.

Eileen liked Moshi Moshi. The writing flowed from one simple moment to the next. More than anything else, however, it touched her that the little old man had chosen this book in particular.

It centered around a girl who’d lost her father. In the midst of such grief, the girl drew quiet strength from the relationships she’d built up with the townspeople — relationships accumulated over small, day-to-day interactions. In that sense it reminded her of the friendship with the bushy-browed man.

The weather was bleak that day. Nonetheless, Eileen walked to the store with a lightness in her step. She wondered what kind of book the little man would recommend this time.

She approached the storefront. Looking through the glass, she expected to see him reading again, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

But he wasn’t there.

In his place was a younger man, maybe in his 30s. He stared fixedly at something on his phone.

“Excuse me, where is the man who used to manage the counter?”

“Oh, he’s left. Resigned a couple days ago. He seems to have gone someplace far. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No…I’m good.”

Eileen returned a few times after that, but eventually her visits petered out. What once was warm and familiar had lost its color. She realized she had come to rely on the consistency of the counter and its offerings. Just as the sun rose everyday, there would be a recommendation every visit. That was what she had imagined.

It reminded her of a passage she’d read in Moshi Moshi.

“I’d been thinking a lot about the power that one person could have. What it meant for someone to be irreplaceable, that things had to end if they left.”

To paraphrase, seven billion people live on this planet. If one were to vanish, the globe would continue to spin. Society would continue to function. Ultimately, people could be substituted. Every single one of us — an infinitesimal grain in a vast sea of humanity. The bushy-browed man had disappeared, but a new counter man took his place.

However, it wasn’t the same. No longer could Eileen slip off that outer facade at the door, the same way that people slip off shoes at home. No longer could she read a recommendation, and wonder if the little old man had the same reactions. No longer could she go through the checkout routine, seeing what worlds he had transported to that day.

She had lost her wormhole travel buddy.

Two entities, drifting through space, in a shared connection of stories.

Eventually the store folded over. The rise of e-books meant only the largest of booksellers stood a chance, and the business simply wasn’t making enough profit to sustain itself.

In its place rose a phone servicing shop. Whenever Eileen walked by, she saw a middle-aged man talking with customers. Sometimes there’d be a little girl with baby hairs that flew wispily in every direction. His daughter, presumably. She was always sitting on a chair by the side, diligently writing in a workbook.

Eileen had been holding onto her copy of Moshi Moshi. It remained at the bottom of her purse, a sliver of the past that she clung to.

That day she drew it out. Taking one last look, she placed it on the chair where the girl usually sat.

It was a story she wanted to share.

After all, people left; businesses folded; sometimes the changes that took place were inevitable. But the stories they left behind — those remained timeless.

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