“Each stitch must be pristine.”
Exacting in a way that elicits such satisfaction. Like the sacred act of a tongue that runs over freshly aligned teeth. Everett slides the needle and thread through the slip of fabric, watching as the pages become closer and closer. An intimacy set forever in time.
“There is art in everything you see, Malcolm.” He turns to the boy and peers over his magnifying glasses. “And our art, mine and yours, is bound to literature.” Everett chuckles lightly, swiftly turning back to hand-stitching the aged stack of papers. He smiles at the dad joke, a cheesy pun that he often uses during these educational moments. The pages are filled with words and language. A classic novel, weathered by time and love. Soon to be refurbished at Everett’s careful hands. He finishes the final stitch and sets down the text block.
“Now, let us set these edges right. I’m thinking a gilded edge for this edition, seeing as the characters are so radiant.” He stands and rustles the boy’s mop of hair. Malcolm, quiet and attentive as always, stares wide-eyed at his father. Everett puts the text block between two clamps, twisting the knobs with deft turns.
He moves familiarly around the small workshop. The room is brightly lit with lamps and a small window, cracked open, and facing east. It looks out beyond a set of bars below the street level. Legs and wheels flutter past, making their way along west 74th.
The heaviness of heat and glue is counteracted with standing fans, all tilted up and towards the window. Looking in from the street, tables of books, battered and bruised, sit against the left wall. A mahogany bookcase stands parallel on the right wall, filled with treasures and leather-bound collections, shining from special care. Centered between is a large workshop table, covered in shavings, loose papers, brass tools, a ruled grid mat in the center. On the right side of the table is a rack of different color fabrics, mostly leather, draped over each rung.
“Next, Malcolm, comes the sanding. Time to roll up our shirt sleeves and use some muscle. Shall we start with the 120-grit?” Everett opens a drawer on the bottom left, removes a sandpaper block and two sets of workmen gloves, and sets them next to the clamps.
“But first—” He stands and reaches over to the shelf hanging about a foot above the table, grabbing a stack of plastic CD cases. Shuffling through, he finds the one with sharpie scrawl from his past teenage hands, 12 Memories. He opens the disc tray in the old cd player resting there and gently places the disc. It recedes into the machine, a small whir and then click, flooding Everett with sounds of 2003.
*
There is a craft in the way stories stay with us. They bite into our skins, rip and tear apart places inside our bodies for a place to settle. It is a violent pleasure that some happily repeat again and again. Like the needling sting of a tattoo or the sharp stab of a piercing. But unlike these superficial brandings that bury along with us beneath the ground, stories live beyond a lifetime. They are shared, remembered, passed through old and new hands. They exist outside our grandfather clocks and smartphones. Characters and places and adventures are woven into the fabric of our DNA, twisting round and round the double helix. There is a timelessness in tales. On the existential planes that we struggle, these tales exist for the sake of existence. They do not leave us behind once they tire of being read too much. Or told too much. Or held too much. They stay. And they are bound physically and emotionally to us. Bound to the blood in our hearts, the air in our lungs, the music in our ears.
*
He rubs gently back and forth the stick of beeswax over the warm foil. It is a delicate touch to the rich gold foil that adds a winking gleam. Everett wipes away all excess with a cloth and gently bends and taps the text block. All the pages flutter with a golden shine remarkably similar to the summer sun just beyond the window. Church bells ring in the distance, signaling the midday break of an older, more regimented time.
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