Judging Books By Their Cover || Open
Sonny picked up the hardcover book balanced just so against a row of identical books and studied the cover. It was fairly minimalist; just a solitary brown hiking boot, red laces tucked into the shoe. He frowned at the title of the book. It read “wild” without the proper capitalization. He was no grammar freak himself, but weren’t publishing companies supposed to be a bit more professional than this?
His eyes flicked down to the next line, where it read, in smaller print, “from lost to found of the Pacific Crest Trail.” He groaned internally. Not another cliche against all odds survival story. He placed it back against its clones so it no longer stood out and kept walking through the store.
His interest in reading waxed and waned like the cycles of the moon, and today happened to be a sort of full moon for him. A slow day at work and a lack of response from Penny when he texted her with the hopes of hanging out had left him outrageously bored. A Novel Idea, a store he didn’t often go into had been a place he had been meaning to visit. He needed something to do that wasn’t too much effort, and wasn’t staring at a television screen for hours on end; reading seemed to be the happy medium here.
Then, of course, there were the Game of Thrones books further back in the store, hidden away from the eyes of more easily offended shoppers. The colorful colors of the paperbacks and the promises of murder, corrupt politics, and controversial character deaths within intrigued him, but the girth of the novels quickly sent him away. He needed a pastime, not a chore.
This went on for quite some time; nothing quite catching his eye, everything open to his quick judgements. He sighed, feeling his motivation for completing this task waning into nonexistence. Beginning to make his way to the exit, his foot caught hold of something and he stumbled. Regaining his balance ungracefully, he turned to see that he had tripped over a pair of legs. A twinge of annoyance went through him. There were chairs in the shop, why did this person have to choose a walking space to sit on and sprawl their legs across?
“Sorry ‘bout that,” he said, managing to keep a polite tone. “Hopefully I didn’t kick you too hard?”
