He died months ago.

 

Everyone knows. It was news, after all.

 

The bookstore downtown had just opened up a new baked goods counter on the second floor—he’d been looking forward to it for months, talked to the owner about it every time he went in and everything—he was only going into town for a butterscotch cupcake, and maybe that book about rainforest preservation and monkeys. I had seen it on a talk show and told him I wanted to read it. 

 

I didn’t go with him because it was cold that morning, and I don’t much like bookstores. This one is especially dark, much too dark for good reading, and it smelt new. I didn’t like that smell, and I didn’t like that it was new but they must have chosen to make it dark. And it had too many books. A silly complaint, I know, he always told me that, too, but I just never knew where to start. There are shelves all the way from the cherry-wood floor to the ceiling—is anyone tall enough to even reach up there? Those, poor books, poor authors, unfortunate enough to land on the top shelf where no casual browser is curious enough to climb. There are enough books to look at on the shelves I can reach, thank you very much. It’s overwhelming as it is. Far too many voices, all of them vying for attention, and I would only really look at ten, maybe, twenty at the very most.

 

Just think of all those voices that no one would pay notice to—it’s sad, isn’t it? Just think of all people who put their hearts into those stories, and put them out into the world to be loved. Just think of all the people who walk right by, or slide out the book two spines over with the flashier font.

Bookstores made me quite sad.

 

(They still do, for different reasons. I liked it best when he brought books home for me.)

 

I told him this the first time he convinced me to go in with him. I told him, “There are too many voices here. Doesn’t it make you sad? That they all want to be heard, and you’ll never hear them?” And he smiled at me the way you would smile at child who had said something particularly imaginative, and he said that he heard the voices too, but he thought they were beautiful.

 

(Think of all of those stories being told. So many voices. It’s actually amazing, isn’t it?)

 

He thought we were lucky to hear so many voices. I don’t think he quite understood then, when I was next to him and listening closely. When he talked, and I talked back. When his voice was crisp and clear in that small room, so much louder than all of the others.

Every Friday afternoon I walk to the bookstore downtown for a butterscotch cupcake. I once heard my sister tell my mother that this was unhealthy, and of course it is, cupcakes are terrible for you. I don’t go yapping on about her affinity for Oreo cookies, though, do I?

I don’t go for the cupcakes anyway. The frosting is good, though hardly worth dying for.

 

I go for the voices, and for him.

 

Walking into that bookstore is like walking into a packed stadium with sub-par noise cancelling headphones. A muted roar. A rowdy party a few houses down. I can hear the voices, but I can never hear what they are saying, or even if they are saying anything at all.

 

I think that they are, though. Saying something, that is, because I can see him.

 

I see him most often in the poetry section, or in contemporary fiction. Sometimes he wanders to nonfiction—history—because I swear it gets louder there, and he knows I wont follow.

 

I prefer to watch from a distance anyway. He gets thinner when I try to get to close, but he’s clear as a summer morning from far away.

 

I do wonder if I could get close enough if I would be able to hear him. When he is the clearest, although I am far, I can see his lips moving— very rapidly, at times, and as if he were very, very tired, at others. But it’s impossible, simply impossible, to hear him in all of that buzzing and humming and crinkling and crackling. He looks right at me, too. He used to wave his arms and jump and open his mouth wide as if he was yelling, but he stopped doing that several weeks in. I’m glad for it, he looked rather silly.

 

I tried reading his lips, but I can’t get close enough to make any words from the shapes I see before he thins out to nothing. He must be saying something, I know he must be, but it makes no difference.

 

Every Sunday I see him speak, but I cannot hear his voice. I hear the voices, although I hear nothing. There are too many, and there always have been. I close my eyes, and listen to the time-bent sound of his voice bouncing around inside my skull: think of all of those stories being told. So many voices. It’s actually amazing, isn’t it?