Member-only story
I Still Buy Physical Books
Digital doesn’t get it done. OG readers know.
The Bookstore Owner
It’s 11 p.m. Dark, no stars. Soft rain patters against the windows of the small town corner bookstore. The proprietor, a graying, middle-aged man, old and weary before his time, starts locking up.
Another bad day. Only one sale. To a little old lady who was looking for that “cute sparkly vampire” book for her granddaughter. He sold her Dracula instead. Maybe he could save just one Zoomer.
No else even came inside. All too busy staring down at their phones as they walked past. Doomscrolling TikTok, cat memes, and God knows what else. These glowing screens might as well be crack pipes, he thinks, wiping a distressed brow.
The proprietor lifts his tired eyes to the black abyss of a sky as he closes the shades. He used to be filled with optimism. He was going to change the world. He was going to be somebody. A bookseller. A real bookseller. He was going to nourish the world with the printed word. With physical books. Sure, they were dusty, old, and smelled funny. But they were real. Imprinted with human touch and ownership. A physical book is something that says, “I exist, I matter!”
Except nobody wants real books anymore. They just want their glowing screens. They want their…
