The book sat on it’s shelf like all the others around it. Copy after copy, orderly, resting like ammunition. The shop where the book sat was brightly lit and free of dust. Large storefront windows allowed the book to be seen by any who happened past the shop.
Long studied ruins sat in it’s shadow, halfway across the globe and forgotten to most of the world.
Next to the shelf holding the book was a greeting card stand fully stocked with cards displaying cute kitten with yarn, or sleeping in a litter, or nestled next to a puppy. To the right of the gift card stand there was a small glass case with silver pin suitable for gifting to a grandmother.
Streets paved with gravestones mapped the books history and under the stones the earth was painted read with violence and greed.
The shop owner greeted his customer with honest smiles, many of them by name. Children gathered in corners and played with brightly colored building blocks. The girls wore ribbons in their hair and the boys believed they had cooties.
A man read the book, it’s gold embossing the only rich thing in the dingy room, as he engages in flagellation, his skin turning to bleeding welts.
A newly married couple purchased a copy of the book and request that it have the first blank page be printed with their names scrolled out in sweeping letters. The shopkeeper cooed at their sweet sentiments and helped them pick a font.
In the distance a homeless man hides behind the book. He repeats the words again and again… and again, wanting nothing more than for them to be true, while pedestrians walked around him and whispered hateful utterances just loud enough to make him wonder if the voices were in his head.
One mother shows her daughter a picture from the book and explained how it symbolizes love and all that is right in the word. The little girl smiled and finished her mothers sentence and was rewarded with a hug. Her mother buried her nose in the girls hair and breathed in deeply.
An army assembled and matched on their enemies, death floating in their eyes amongst the company of hate and revenge.
An elderly woman waited her turn and watched as the newly wed couple left the store, the door to the shops chiming a delicate bell as it swung through its motions. She presented the shopkeeper with a necklace she wished to buy, it’s right angles clad in gold and centered with a precious stone.
An African child digested the lining of his own stomach before his eyes rolled back in his head and died of starvation, his last breath slipping out of his chapped and cracked lips, flies covering his gaunt form.
A man in a suit buys the book and hoists it into the air and asks for money on Sunday morning.
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