Frederic of Bookhaven

In the town of Aporia, on the corner of Fifth Page and Ampersand Lane, stood an altogether cozy building, known to the locals as Bookhaven. It was all that a bookshop ought to be: warm and welcoming, a refuge from the many storms of life, and a storehouse of adventures yet to unfold. Venturing over the threshold promised comfort and enjoyment, and readers came to find both each day.

On Wednesdays, for example, Millie – who lived only a brisk walk down the cobblestone street – was in the habit of donning her favorite pair of boots and searching the shelves for any and every book she could find on art. Watercolor was her great passion; nearly all of the quaint homes and businesses of Aporia had been studied by her paints and brush. She dreamed of making her living as an artist, and the books she found fueled Millie’s joy in her craft.

Often, on a Saturday afternoon, Mr. Hancock could be spotted moseying his way through the nonfiction section in search of new books on local flora and fauna. Aporia was famous for unusual blooms not seen elsewhere in the world, and Mr. Hancock devoted his life to the study of them. Privately, he dreamed of unraveling the puzzling secret of the flowers’ flourishing so that they might bloom in other regions of the world and bring the same delight and curiosity to others that they so endlessly brought to him.

Most Friday evenings found Eloise – a shy, dark-haired girl clinging tightly to her mother’s hand – coming up to the front desk to ask if any new children’s stories had come in this week. The ones with –

“With dragons are your favorite. Yes, I remember,” Frederic would interrupt in bored tones.

For Frederic had lost the wonder of Bookhaven. Where others beheld possibility, he only saw an endless string of days and faces running together until they were hardly distinguishable. While he cared for the patrons of the bookshop and knew that many of them had wandered its aisles since his grandfather, Peter, founded it many decades past, Frederic longed for something more.

As closing time neared, Frederic tapped his finger on the desk and bounced his knee, growing more impatient until five o’clock chimed and he raced up the rickety wooden stairs at the back of the shop and disappeared into his apartment. A meal was hurriedly prepared and while eating, he flipped through the mail that the postwoman, Susie – a great lover of mysteries – delivered earlier in the day. Within the pile lay a rejection letter.

The inevitability of these letters failed to deter Frederic, until recently. His fondest wish was to craft stories and imagined worlds for a living, yet days accumulated into years of placing books on the shelves of Bookhaven, each one written by authors who were living out the dream he cherished so dearly. It certainly wasn’t for lack of words or persistence. He spent practically every evening in fictional worlds of his own making only to be informed by one publisher after another that these were not worlds readers would care to visit.

Undeterred, Frederic simply created new ones, but tonight, he sat and stared at the paper, flicking his pen back and forth in his left hand. A cat yowled outside, disrupting his gloomy reverie. Seeing as he had nothing more worthwhile to write, Frederic absentmindedly scribbled:

Just as the cat’s yowling reached a decibel as yet unheard by even the most unfortunate members of the human race, it came to a sudden and welcome stop.

And as the period was decisively marked by Frederic, the yowling ceased. Frederic hmphed in satisfaction. Well, he thought, if his writing could, at least, bring about the end of the feline’s nightly racket, that was worth being grateful for.

Sighing, he pushed back his chair and stared out the window, thinking about what the next day had in store. It was a Tuesday, and Frederic knew that sometime during her lunchbreak, Ms. Simmons would march through the front door, demanding to know when Frederic was going to start stocking her favorite Regency romance.

Somewhere around the tenth of Never, he longed to tell her, but he supposed that would be impolite. Of course, Frederic had nothing against Ms. Simmons’s taste in books, or in Eloise’s longing for new dragon stories, or Mr. Hancock’s predictable purchases. It was simply that he always knew exactly what was going to happen, and who he would see each day, and what they would buy. Just once, he wished that Bookhaven’s patrons would do something out of character or that something wonderfully unexpected would happen.

Smiling at the thought of the cat falling suddenly silent, Frederic picked up his pen once more.

Tuesday at lunchtime came about as it always does, but Ms. Simmons could be found wandering happily in the science fiction section, having discovered a passion for this unfamiliar genre.

Frederic chuckled to himself, tossed his pen on the desk, and promptly went to bed.

The next day was cozy and rainy, as the days often were in Aporia. Frederic busied himself amongst stacks of new arrivals, returned reads, and the usual stream of customers. He thought nothing of the time until he heard a patron ask their friend if they were hungry for lunch. It was nearly half past noon, and the time had come and gone for Ms. Simmons’s arrival. Frederic merely found it odd, until he looked around and saw the very same woman browsing the science fiction section.

He froze. That was decidedly strange. What were the odds, in fact?

Frederic found himself wandering in Ms. Simmons’s direction. “Quite a change from your usual read, Ms. Simmons,” he casually remarked.

“Isn’t it? The strangest whim struck me last night, and this morning, I thought I’d cater to it. Do you have any suggestions?”

Frederic did, indeed, though he never thought he would be sharing them with the likes of Ms. Simmons. She made her selections and went happily on her way half an hour later. Frederic stood behind the desk, confounded and entertaining the most unlikely of possibilities. But surely, he had to give it a try.

Surreptitiously, he pulled out a notebook and thought for a few moments before penning these words:

Later that same day, Millie arrived to share the most unexpected and glorious news: an acceptance letter to a prestigious art school had arrived in the mail, and she would be leaving within the week!

For Millie, it would be a long-cherished dream come true. But whether or not it could come about through his pen is what Frederic most desired to know. He was nearly mad with impatience by the time Millie crossed the shop’s threshold. Everything was exactly as he had written it. She shoved the acceptance letter under his nose and gratefully accepted his sincere congratulations before purchasing one last art book and half-dancing out the door.

Frederic couldn’t help himself after that. He succeeded in getting Mr. Hancock to confide his dream regarding Aporia’s flora, and that very night, the middle-aged gentleman finally perceived the flower’s secret. A local journalist soon caught wind of his discovery. Mr. Hancock was, quite suddenly and inexplicably, a celebrated figure, and was whisked away to share his knowledge with curious minds the world over.

Eloise, of course, was next. He penned a fantastic tale about a young reader of all the best fantasy literature. By the end of the tale, Eloise was the recipient of a lifetime supply of storybooks featuring dragons, griffins, and all manner of fantastic creatures. When Eloise woke the next morning, a box addressed to her waited on her front step, much to the girl’s astonishment and delight.

And so it continued. Patron after patron received their fondest wishes and began to live out passions that so recently seemed like quaint pipe dreams. No one understood but Frederic. He was the maker of these hopes fulfilled, the author of every tale unfolding in Aporia. At last, he penned what he had not yet dared to:

Frederic received an acceptance letter and became a full-time author practically overnight.

The next morning, Frederic woke to find the letter lying on the front desk. He had waited years for just such a letter, and the whirlwind of first-time publication swiftly swept him up. All that he longed for instantaneously came to pass. Yet, in the coming days, the strangest dissatisfaction swept over Frederic.

Something was wrong, and he sought desperately to puzzle it out.

He finally had all that he ever wanted: a contract for multiple books with his favorite publisher, a debut novel to be published in the spring, and the freedom to pen untold stories every day. Countless people in Aporia were living out similarly perfect fantasies. After pursuing this dream for so long, how could Frederic now be discontented with it?

And then he landed on the answer.

A much-lauded figure in the scientific community called into question Mr. Hancock’s findings about Aporia’s flowers, and so well-respected was she that Mr. Hancock found himself discredited and ignored. He could no longer find the delight he once did in books that celebrated the unique blooms found in their town.

The first thing Millie learned was that watercolor was not a daring enough form of art to warrant full-time study. A professor persuaded her to pursue the abstract, though she had no passion for it. No time remained for the books that invited her to delve deeper into her favorite art form.

Eloise had all the storybooks she could ever want delivered to her door. There was no longer any need to investigate the bookshop’s newest inventory.

Bookhaven was empty.

The books were still there, of course, but the readers who brought them to life were not. Frederic found that he was an author, not of the heartfelt and moving tales he imagined, but of manufactured dreams brought about before their time. There was no true joy to be found in an acceptance letter that ultimately led away from passion, a discovery that brought division, a delivery that brought isolation, or a novel that brought success but no community.

The bookshop was meant to be a home for the readers of Aporia, but Frederic’s unexpected gift had robbed them of one, and, in fact, robbed him.

That night, Frederic picked up his pen once more to write something he never expected he would:

All the dreams Frederic thought he authored came untrue, and all the people of Aporia were better for it. The dreams would come about, but in the right time, and it was not for him to determine when that might be.

He was Frederic of Bookhaven. He would keep pursuing his dream of writing, but at the same time, he would welcome all readers with passions and dreams of their own, invite them to dive into literary adventures, and help them remember that the bookshop – like all true bookshops – was, for them, a haven and a home.