She walked into the bookshop that smelled of old books. Whispers of long-gone authors hummed in the background as she walked over the floorboards that croaked and creaked with every step. The old lady at the front desk was as old as the books. Her body's movements croaked and creaked in accordance with the floorboards. A dying fly floated above her head.
Maya approached her with trepidation. Maybe this was a gateway to the nether world.
"Do you perhaps have anything of Camus?"
"What?"
"Do you have any books written by Camus?"
"What," the old lady asked again.
"Camus," Maya almost shouted at the old lady who did not look like she wanted to help. Maybe the bookshop sold books as a front for some other business.
She stood up from the old chair that looked rotten. She walked to different aisles and picked random books from random shelves, in no particular order. There was a kind of rhythm in the old lady's movements, but it was also sad and pathetic. What did she even do? What did she even attempt to accomplish?
She placed a stack of old books on the counter. Various hardcover books in different languages. She saw two or three in English. She picked them up but felt a strange tingle in her hands as if the books contained some form of magic. She bought the three books, it cost almost nothing.
***
She ordered a coffee. She lit up a cigarette. She imagined herself in Paris in the 1940s. The first book opens in her hands. The most fundamental question in all philosophy is that of suicide. We should imagine Sisyphus happy in the end. Why did Meursault pull the trigger? Why did he not cry at his mother's funeral? The questions seemed to pile up. Nothing made sense. The more the words scrambled her thoughts, the more she yearned to talk to K. But she did not even know who K was.
The second coffee made its way to her table. She felt a strange buzz in her brain, something she never felt before. Something different to the drink. She felt the ideas course through her mind but she did not understand anything. Complex ideas, complex questions, her fixed position in the world as a problem became unhinged. She felt it suck her into the void of a different kind. And K became a type of messiah through which she needed to move to understand. But it was beyond her own cognitive capabilities.
K suddenly stood next to her table but he said nothing. It was as if a flood of understanding rushed over her, but it still felt too abstract.
"Another?"
K vanished and the waiter stood before her with the empty cup in her hand.
"No," she closed the books and paid for her coffee. She rushed home to see when the next art class meeting would be. She did not even notice that she did not crave to drink her loneliness away.
The story is taking shape again. A momentary bump in the road prohibited me from writing more, but now it is working out! I wanted to write more but time is a factor and deadlines do not want to be moved. In any case, I hope you enjoyed this post and this modulation. I hope that the next one will not take this long! Stay well, and happy reading!
The photographs were kindly taken by 
