The Animator

I wandered into a small bookstore on a rainy afternoon just to kill time but ended up staying for hours because every shelf seemed to pull me in like it knew exactly what I was looking for even though I had no idea, the smell of old paper and ink was everywhere and it made my head feel both calm and busy at the same time, and I found a stack of novels with covers I had never seen before and a notebook with a pen stuck in the spiral that someone had left behind, and I started flipping pages of random books just reading snippets about strangers’ lives and adventures, sometimes laughing at something ridiculous or stopping to stare at a passage that sounded like it had been written just for me, and outside the rain pattered against the windows and made patterns on the glass while people hurried past with umbrellas and muddy shoes, and inside the shop it felt like time had slowed down or maybe disappeared entirely, and I thought about how weird it was that places can make you forget the world without even trying, and how stories can trap you and comfort you at the same time, and by the time I finally looked at my watch and realized the afternoon had vanished I felt like I had lived a dozen little lives just sitting in that corner, smelling books and hearing the rain, and when I left I carried some of that quiet energy with me but also a strange urge to go back and get lost in it all over again.