Eventually

Last night I wrote this short story. I started it around 8, give or take a few minutes and when I got up after reading it a few times it was 9:05 ... decided to leave it as close to how I wrote it as I could.


“Eventually” by Jeffrey Lageson (c) 2006

Eventually, he would read all of the books stacked up on his nightstand.
He was like that.
Stubborn, many would say.
Thorough, he would say.
He had managed to finish off stacks like this before. He would go on binges; reading for hours a day at the expense of other habits or needs. Sometimes reading at all sorts of odd times and in very peculiar places to be caught reading books.
The bus was one thing.
Reading on work breaks was another.
Flipping pages while alone was – on the whole – probably better than sitting in front of the television or computer surfing the net while having dinner.
But, people should not read in bars. It would scare off potential patrons and give the place a bad name. “There’s a fun place to hang out, that guy is reading in here.” Boring is death.
Now, a coffee shop, that would be okay, expected even, even if a bit cliché. Hell, it’s quieter in some coffee shops these days for those reading, writing, or studying than the library gets anymore. People will step outside to take cell calls at some coffee shops. Yet, there was a woman holding a conversation while on the computer in the library the other day on her cell phone. Librarians he grew up with – be they school or public libraries – would simply not have tolerated such nonsense in their libraries.
But, saying something like that smacked of saying an “In My Day” sort of statement where the first three words would be spoken loudly and enunciated slowly by a grumpy old man that simply disapproved of things full-time any more, regardless of whether things truly were better or not in his day.
Part of his problem was that he didn’t like not finishing a book. He might hate it, but he felt like he should finish it. It wasn’t really even a badge of honor or anything, it was simply his preference. So, eventually he would just slog his way through drivel and crap literature, hoping, often without any real glimmer or reason for said hope, to at least encounter a good line or scene or something to validate why the book was in print when other talented people did not get their work published at all. Ever.
He actually felt the same about movies; renting videos to see the first half hour or second half of a movie previously half watched. Often, he would choose not to start watching a television series someone would recommend to him, simply because he knew he would have to go back and see every single previous episode or he would simply explode.
These were the sorts of things that really and truly bothered him.
There were currently thirteen books on his dresser and two sitting on his pillow, all in various states of having been read – or not. Six of the books were gifts. Always nice to get a book as a gift. One he’d borrowed from his father. Six others he’d purchased. Two he had borrowed from communal shelves at work and thought he was likely to return them when he was done. But, since there were no due dates on a communal shelf and no one really expects those sorts of things back or really keeps track of the books on a shelf like that – they brought them in to get rid of them in the first place and didn’t feel like taking the trip to a used book store to sell them – he wasn’t certain he would ever bring them back at all, especially if he liked them.
He was like that, too.
Two of the books would be considered biography. Three of the books dealt with kids and their problems. One was a book about relationships that he was uncertain if it had been loaned to him or given as a gift. He sort of got the impression it could be either. He had gotten a burr up his butt one day and purchased a book on learning Latin, getting about as far into it as one would expect before setting it on the night stand five books down, just above two of the six books that would generally be thought of as non-fiction or historical types of books. Only two of the books were fiction and both of those were novels, not collections of short stories. Of those two novels, one he’d already read at the suggestion of a woman he knew and regarded well. She was right. It was a fantastic book he could recommend to others, always with the caveat of letting people know it starts slow, but is worth it if you stick with it. The other was a bestseller he had purchased, dirt cheap at a library sale, someone having donated it most likely. He figured that one he’d get to last, even though he wanted to read it if for no other reason than to find out what all the fuss was about.
Most of the books he had at least started, and various items were in use as bookmarks. A few books had their receipts in use. One book had his only photo of a woman he dated marking a chapter on relationship mistakes. Obviously that book was not one of the two novels or biographies.
In all, six of the books in the stack were already read, the book on Latin wasn’t really a sit down and read it book anyways, and four of the books he was well into. Reading multiple books at a time was not unusual. There was the western novel in the door of his vehicle with only a couple chapters left. Often, he’d have the work book, the commute book, the bedroom book, and the one he’d tuck in his vehicle to give himself something to do if needing to wait in his car for a period of time or if he was broke down or stranded. He knew he should finish the four he was well into, but hesitated and went and got some ice cream instead, sitting down to watch the rest of the DVD that was due the next day.
He hated leaving things partially read, but the DVD had a due date on it.