once upon a time, there was a girl who was very sleepy and liked coffee and books and ruins of castles or abbeys or things like that, and music. that was a lot of things to like, but she managed to find time for them all.
anyhow, once upon a sleepy monday, she was even more sleepy than usual and was also slap-happy and a little bored. this was a dangerous combination of events, and it all spontaneously combusted into much excitement over an album she and others were awaiting with much anticipation and fiendish glee. into the quirks and squiggles of conversation came mention of another album by another band. this album had some kind of ruinous building as its cover art, the girl remembered, and she thought “oh, i like ruinous things,” as she thought a lot of other things about the description of the album with ruins on its cover.
“well,” she further thought, “if it had the good taste to be dressed in ruins, surely i would like it.”
that thought was completely illogical, of course, but she was not going to be stopped by cold, calculating logic and thought it anyway. she decided to seek this album out at her local library … only to find quite sadly that they did not own a copy.
“well,” she thought again. “i know a place where one can find a lot of music of this sort for a not very expensive price. surely i will like it, since it has ruins on the cover.”
and so it came about that, on the second portion of her lunch break, she journeyed a far to a place of wonder, excitement, mystery, magic and danger, for therein lay a treasury of books and music more numerous than she really cared to enumerate.
she quickly espied the quarry she sought and caught it up in her hands, then ventured to look amongst the ancient tomes and treasured volumes with gilten type gracing their spines. therein she found another treasure, which happened to be a copy of g.k. chesterton’s heretics, printed in a year of a very long roman numeral. this she also caught up, plunked down some government-issued treasure in exchange for these treasures, and then wended her merry way to the coffee shop two doors down.
therein she requested of the hat-wearing barista a cup of his finest dark-roast brew of the day, to which he replied “room for cream?”
she declined, for she took her coffee seriously and drank it black like a man.
as she laid her treasures on the counter to distribute to the barista some fairly clean lucre, he espied the album on top of her book.
“are you going to see them when they’re in town?” he queried.
flummoxed, for she was still sleepy and concentrating on acquiring the coffee and escaping, she spluttered slightly as she searched for a reply.
“oh, when are they coming?” she asked, trying to buy time.
“well … i did know,” the barista replied, apparently somewhat flummoxed as well.
“ha!” the girl thought to herself, but did not say out loud.
“probably not,” was what she did say. “i’m still being indoctrinated in their music.”
she realized this was not the brightest of responses to make, nor exactly the most generous (or, perhaps, strictly truthful), but the words had escaped her mouth and she could not stuff them back in. the barista gave her an odd look as well as her cup of coffee. she gratefully accepted the latter, thanked him and absconded as quickly as grace, poise, a dress, a book and a cd and a cup of coffee would allow her to.
THE END.
