Staff post by Michelle Langstone. (Represented by her cat, Frances.)
I have recently moved house, and I managed to remain cheerful throughout the arduous process by way of the promise of new bookshelves once I had finally settled in. My last bookshelf was made by hand by my father. Wonky, forever at a lean, very stained and eventually warped from one unfortunate move across the city in torential rain; it was also much too small to house all my papery companions. I loved it until it fell apart and squashed the spine of a Maurice Gee.
Proper bookshelves are something I have always lusted after. I dream of a reading room. A couch to fall asleep on in a room smelling sweetly of dust, and of words.
I ordered secondhand shelves from a place online and ended up spending a morning with a very stressed-out lady in Glen Eden who was almost in tears as she tried to get the right width shelves for me, the right amount of screws. Furious calls to her husband, much pacing of the warehouse, a fair amount of shouting at the computer. How could she be so unhappy in this, my most joyful of moments, the purchase of my bookshelves? After a 30 minute stint as a very average councillor (“I think he just doesn't notice how hard you work because you make it seems effortless, easy.”) I was driving across town with a car full of recylced pine shelving and a metal brace that pinged against the metal joinery and dinged the windows.
It took three hours to assemble them. I nearly took a gouge out of the wall, and then out of my head when the shelves slid sideways before I had a chance to brace them. I'm fairly sure I gave myself mild concussion at one point. I broke a drill bit in half like it was chalk. I scared the cat.
It was the most glorious afternoon of my adult life.
And there they stand now, all the books in rows, living above and below one another, communing with the morning sun that comes streaming in to wake them up. I imagine my bookshelves are apartments. I imagine the comings and goings, the disputes over noise, bills, parking spaces. I think about the authors who will get along, and the authors who will come to blows. I think about the narratives sleepwalking in the night hours, and waking to find themselves in the wrong stories altogether.
Visitors to my house run their fingers along the spines. The cat rubs her sides against the spines and sniffs the jackets. I sit down to dinner at my little table in front of the bookshelf and my boyfriend and I talk about the books.
I talk about them as if they are people.
As if they are friends.
My book housing project goes on. I dream of more shelves. Alphabetising. Colour coding.
From my bed I can see the shadow thrown by the bookshelves that are at night basking in the light spilling from the neighour's house.
I've never had a shadow like this before. A long and full shadow. Wordy, but quiet.
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