Little Shop o=f Horrors (N5)

Hank wanted to set up a business, but he didn’t really know how to do it. He knew he had to, because available income was drying up and his life style was on a rocky road. It made him afraid, sad, and angry. And it had to stop. His second (or third) (or fourth) wife wasn’t being particularly helpful, either, because her own fortune (why else would he have married her) wasn’t turning out to be as abundant as he’d anticipated. He’d have to be creative, although he didn’t understand creativity and work wasn’t his strong point.

Then Henry Karl had an idea. It came to him when he saw a book in a shop window, and the window happened to belong to a bookstore. He watched as customers in a steady drip would walk in and then walk out. When they came through the door onto the street, almost every one of them was carrying a package or a bag. Henry Karl surmised then that business was good and he began to think, just a little. He had heard that nobody was buying books anymore because nobody read anymore. Or maybe they did, but they didn’t tend to read real books, whether hard cover or soft. Yet here they were, going into the bookstore and coming out with books.

Then the little wheels in his head started moving and he thought this type of store could actually be the basis for a niche market. He decided he would explore his options and was already looking into ways of getting a chain of his own. The biggest challenge was figuring out what kinds of books to stock. He had a couple of vague ideas, but ultimately his friends (there weren’t many) advised against accounting and manuals for financial advice. They insisted the market for those sorts of publications was very restricted, especially for people coming in off the street to browse.

Hank eventually caved, taking the advice and setting up his bookstore in a fairly traditional manner, with an assortment of easy reading material. He let somebody else do the physical work of putting books on the shelves of the sections, but kept an eye on them. They could always be trying to charge him for hours they didn’t actually work.

It took about two months to get the store up and running and to find a name for the chain he was preparing to launch. The name was one he had thought up all by himself: Never-Never Land. He considered it his invention, despite its use by Barrie for his work about Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. Barrie hadn’t applied it to a bookstore chain, so there was no copyright infringement. Plus, the concept of lost boys (or girls) was quite appealing to Hank, and that led him to develop his modest store into something a whole lot bigger.

There were no Lost Girls in Barrie’s Neverland, but Hank wasn’t deterred by that. He had a plan and they would be included. Everyone had a right to read, it was good, developed the brain, etc. etc. First, however, the Lost Children needed a place of their own, didn’t they? That meant there had to be a secret section that would be set off in a back corner. It would have a special door and it would be trimmed with just a little bit of gold. Maybe spray paint, maybe applied by hand with a small brush.

Not many people would know about this secret section, and nobody would know about the door until they were actually led to it. The mystery was very exciting, and as rumors increased, Hank realized he could turn an extra profit from it. People would pay to pass through the door and see what was behind it. A designated person would guide the appropriate customers to the real Never-Never Land where a pleasant surprise awaited.

Hank’s plan was to keep everything under the radar, low key, well monitored. It was not a place where just anyone could enter. Everything was under control, and the silence surrounding the reality of the hidden area was deafening, but desirable. It was like forbidden fruit, the kind that exists but everybody denies it’s there. Sweet, delicious, for the few. The few who were able to pay. There was always a lost soul willing and able to pay. At first, what lay behind the gold-trimmed door was secret, but rumors end even the best silence, and customers kept appearing. The stores in Hank’s chain grew in number.

You may be wondering how I know all this if it was kept under wraps, but it’s easy enough to explain. I was concerned about the bookstore chain, so unusual for Henry Karl and his lack of reading activity. Surely his project would fail due to incompetent management, but instead it grew. Sales were spectacular, almost as if somebody paid customers to go in and buy books. However, it was the unspoken element that drove the business, the appeal the door in the back held for some people. Since I’ve been aware of Hank’s behavior for a long time, I needed to inspect and chose a new franchise not far from me.

What I discovered is not something I’m prepared to describe right now. It is nothing like I expected, especially because I’ve never seen anything like it and never want to see it again. You see, the hidden room was not a few square feet with shelving. Everyone thought it was an insignificant space, but in fact it extended far into the earth and was like an underground castle. The privileged few who entered that realm - because it was, in fact, a realm - were amazed and seduced. They never revealed what they experienced because they knew that would have disastrous consequences. I was able to slip in because that’s what I am able to do - I’m like a thought that moves about, attracts people, then dissipates. I mean, it’s impossible to catch me or harm me, even if my pursuer is big, strong, or armed.

It’s what I found on the other side that has spurred me on, led me to tell everything I know. I am a witness and must speak. This part is brief, but it is only the introduction. You may doubt my words at first, but I suspect we’ll end up on the same page. After all, this story is about a bookstore and what we can learn from books.

[to be continued]