Books

So I've been Volunteering at Matter Bookstore here in Fort Collins and it's been fun. The place is small, mellow, and local. It's volunteer-run and 80% of the books there have been donated by the public.

For some reason, I like to punish myself with the opening shift at 7 a.m. I know it's not terrible, but waking up at 6 wasn't enjoyable in high school and it's no barrel of monkeys now either. Maybe it's because it's quieter in the mornings. Or maybe I just enjoy strolling through Old Town, cursing the pink sherbet sunset with eyes still bleary (I usually groan a string of inarticulate blasphemies when I roll out of the bed). But things are better when I reach the store. I turn on the lights and I go from a state of undead zombie to slightly alert zombie! This is after I slam into morning joggers on the way into Old Town, of course. It's their fault for staying on the sidewalk.

My usual duties include cleaning and shelving and helping what customers come in. Shelving can be quite difficult, because for every book I rearrange there are two I want to read. I have since learned better than to peruse their contents.

I found it in the backroom. The book had no price or indication of where it belonged. It was thicker than a phone book and wrapped further in a black leather which looked suspiciously like human skin that had been dried in the smoke of Hell's 9th Circle. On the back yellow fingernails had been grafted into the skin, and on the front the red impression of a mottled goat head.

Naturally I assumed this was an original copy of the first Twilight book. Driven by a morbid curiousity, I opened the cover and began to read.

The door to the bookstore/coffee shop banged open and silence fell down from the high ceiling. There, standing in a leather duster coat, a man with a holstered revolver stood.

The working barristas busied themselves with cleaning the counter. The man walked up to me, eyeing the book with a sneer splitting his 5 o clock shadow.

"That book is evil," he told me. "You must not read it."

"Oh, well," I said. "I sort of did. I mean, I got past only the first chapter. A bit slow and dry for my tastes, tortured souls writhing in the ash of children and that sort of thing. I mean, really, it's just shock value."

"Dear God," he said, drawing his revolver. "Already you've been tainted! I've traveled a long way and trained extensively to destroy that, The One Book, so that the poor soul who read it may not be corrupted into a black demon prince! You must die!"

A grapple ensued as I knocked the gun from his hand with a karate chop. I hadn't experienced such ferocious hand-to-hand combat since the Mardi Gras Incident of '64. I had left my brass knuckles in my car, so I had no choice to knock him out with a swift upper cut. He hit the floor, out cold. As a volunteer, it is my responsibility to keep the store tidy and move unconscious witch-hunters from the path of customers. I looked through The One Book and found a spell that seemed legit. I uttered the gravelly syllables and a portal opened into which the poor man was sucked into. The stitch in reality closed up neatly. I feel kind of bad; I think I sent him to the Urgoth Badlands of the demon king Azuul the Marrow Cruncher.

Anyways, I finished reading The One Book, priced it at an outrageous price (I was n black demon prince now, so I thought I'd better get caught up on acts of evil), and set it in the shelves.

I put it in the children's section.

Y'know, I learned something today. Curiosity certainly did kill the cat, but satisfaction brought it back (in the decomposing abomination of bone and sheer darkness). I suppose I should have disciplined myself and used enough common sense to be unnerved by the leather binding of human flesh and placed The One Book back on the shelf. It goes to show you how careful you must be about satisfying your curiosity; it's a lot of work, being an overlord of pure evil. I have demon minions that need work benefits and God knows how insolent tortured souls can be as servants. I mean, really, how long does it take to fetch me a goblet of blood?