changes, pt. 1

Eleutheria.

I came back to Seattle once, hoping to pay my sister a surprise visit--it turned out she was out of town that week, of course, because that's the sort of thing that happens. So, finding myself with a sudden surplus of free time, I wandered through the city, revisiting my old haunts. There's something comforting in the unchanging. Eventually I found myself in my old neighborhood, where the most important of my old haunts had been: a used bookstore next to a coffee shop. They were places I still thought of when I thought of 'home,' which probably explained why, for so long, I'd felt restless and irritable. It's hard to feel safe when home is thousands of miles away.

Except when I reached the block, the bookstore was gone. In its place was the hideous blue of a Chase bank, sitting there like a bad set from a sci-fi movie. It was as if they'd put it there intentionally to taunt me--as if to say "This used to be a place of comfort, a place full of knowledge and secrets and hidden treasures." How could something so beautiful become something so utterly soulless?

The coffee shop still stood, at least. I ordered a chai tea and didn't dare ask when the bookstore had gone. It would have been like asking when the earth had come unchained from the sun.