Of Tomes and Time

Henry ran his thumb down the page to turn to the end of the book. His eyes beamed laterally, anticipating each and every following word. His spectacles rested on the lower bridge of his nose. His grey beard stretched down to the bottom of the page. The outdoor cafe he sat in was nonexistent to him. The deep black coffee at attention before him, long turned cold, was adjacent to the pain au chocolat, missing just a nibble. 

“Monsieur?” the waitress asked, “monsieur?” She had been standing in front of Henry for only a few moments but she knew to be patient. She knew the process. Her young hands gently removed the chilled coffee and she replaced it with a steaming, fresh cup. She turned to retreat when Henry raised his hand to call attention. She smiled, stood still, and waited for the next step. Closing the book in satisfaction, Henry removed his eye wear, placed the book to his left and reached for the warm drink. After a careful sip, Henry exhaled and took notice of the young girl.

“Julie, my dear, I must tell you that the young princess in that novel reminds me of nothing less than your ostentatious ability to know when I am in need of a crisp cup of joe!” Henry exclaimed passionately as if he had known the girl for years: he had. He leaned back into the copper wrought chair and in one movement threw the partial pastry down his throat, chewing with great enthusiasm. “There is nothing, I say nothing, that can compete with the first few moments after finishing such a splendid novel as this! My dear Julie, this cafe has been home to many of these moments.”

“Yes, Monsieur Henry, they have,” Julie smiled and chuckled. “How many is that now?”

“Henry’s face turned to one of calculation, “I reckon that would be the fourth of this month and rounding to the twenty-seventh of the year. Not a moment to waste!”

“And of the total number?”

“Oh, my dear,” Henry took another sip from the cup, “truly, I’ve lost count. But I can tell you that it will be no time before I am tasked to add on to my library. The shelves are beginning to gush with hardbacks.” Henry reached into a satchel that pressed against his legs. It was heavy with more books. He shuffled around in the large bag for a few moments, eagerly selecting his next adventure.

“What a waste, I say! Would have been a better room for a virtual arena,” shouted a tall slender man with thick rimmed glasses and a dark brown goatee, groomed to perfection. He approached Henry’s table, taking the vacant chair. “Julie, darling, an earl grey would you, please?”

“Yes, Monsieur, Eric, right away,” she bowed out with a facetious look to Henry. He gave her a wink.

“I simply refuse to believe you come here just to waste your time shoving your nose into those odorous pages when you have that beauty pouring you a cafe au lait every half-hour,” Eric spoke, budding with juvenile aura. 

“Ah, Eric. How is it we remain companions despite the glaring differences?” snarled Henry, but truly he felt affinity to his young friend. 

“That is simple, good Henry,” Eric paused while Julie placed the tea cup and saucer in front of him. He gave her a nod of approval as she progressed to the next table; he took a deep gulp of the tea. After releasing a gasp of pleasure he continued, “you are a silly old man, clinging to a past that not even you knew, and I am your single link to the present which is the future you wish to deny on a daily basis. You need me just as much as you need your books, I do believe.” Eric sat with his left arm steadying his torso while his right hand fiddled his facial hair. He was much younger than Henry, nearly half his age. Henry appreciated Eric’s cynic, yet constructive vision of the world. He did agree with the basic philosophy of Eric’s thesis on their friendship.

Henry huffed, “you may be correct, Eric. But! I’ve no time for your time wasting conversations today!” Henry went back to his satchel, placing the recently finished book inside while drawing out another. 

“Henry, why must you continue to parade those pages? The physical book has been dead for decades. You are barely old enough to remember the last book in print. Hundreds of credits wasted down on the spines of ink and paper,” scolded Eric before breaking his grimace to a grin and slapping Henry’s shoulder. “Oh, but I get it. Your thing. I suppose we must spend credits somehow.”

“You speak as if reading is a waste of your time,” Henry responded while pushing back the coffee and preparing his position to begin his new novel.

“Well it is, isn’t it? I can spend a fraction of the credits that you throw around for those stories and then have them linked to my cerebrum within moments! I can upload nearly infinitely more books in a year than you will ever read by the end of your life time. But of course you know this. I mean really, Henry! Your library is just fractions of data that one person can hold on just as many credits.”

Henry delayed the beginning of the book. He gazed at Eric, watching him sip at the tea. “You think I waste my time?”

“Of course you do,” Eric replied sardonically. 

“Are you certain you do not wish to have the same time that I decide to possess?”

Eric laughed, “Henry, what you do with your time is ultimately your decision. I can assure you that I am more than pleased with how I spend my time. We live in a world that could not have been imagined just a century ago. I just feel sour about you keeping your eyes to those words rather than experiencing the otherworldly world we have been gifted.”

“But what if we have grown so accustomed to this world, and its riches, that returning to something so archaic as a bound book can be the otherworldly detail that so many miss out on?” Henry questioned and leaned forward. His face grew solemn.

“Don’t give me that,” Eric punched back, “I can experience this world and yours. The difference is my experience takes merely seconds.”

Henry came closer to Eric and spoke low and affectionate, “to just know the words is not to experience them. There became a missing link when we separated from the pages. You cannot know the journey of a Tolkien tale. You cannot feel the pain in a Hemingway story. You cannot embrace the love in the Book of John. These are experiences. These are the parts of our world that have been lost! First came the mobile in the early twenty-first. Then, like an unhindered stone rolling down a hill, we developed device after device that made reading more convenient. A tablet, then audio. We stopped even looking at the words! It took just a handful of generations to move away from print. That began the death of it all. Convenience! So please, allow me to go on the journey with peace; to feel the pain, unrestrained; to recall the love, joyously.”

Henry fell back into the back of his chair and began a long pause. Eric pulled his lips back into a surrendered smile. Henry gave a nod of acknowledgement. 

“Fine then, old man. What’s this one about then?” Eric pointed to the new novel on the table.

“Ah! A lovely tale by Huxley. With a fascinating, futuristic vision on viewing films through feeling,” Henry eagerly opened the pages.

“Feelings? How absurd! Could never imagine. Well, let’s say you go on and read it to me for a while. Save me the credits,” Eric winked to the old man.

Henry chuckled, sat up, and started into his fifth book of the month.