The Bookstore of Lost Worlds

Every week, without fail, my mom took me to the bookstore.

To an outsider, it might have looked like just another errand—another place to pass the time, another stop on the to-do list.

But to me, it was something else entirely. It was the best kind of brainwashing.

The moment we walked through those glass doors, I entered another world.

The bookstore quickly became my Narnia—a place where the rules of reality didn’t apply.

The aisles stretched out before me like roads leading to unknown lands.

Each book was a portal, and I was always on the edge of something magical, something new.

The soft rustle of pages, the faint scent of paper and ink—it felt like stepping into a dream, one where anything could happen.

I spent hours getting lost, tracing my fingers along spines, reading titles that promised adventures far beyond my reach.

The words in those books didn’t just live on pages; they seeped into my bones, filling me with a sense of wonder, a sense of possibility.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that magic never left me.

Years passed, and I grew older, but the bookstore still called to me.

Now, I walk those aisles alone, the same sense of awe lingering in the air.

The thrill of discovery has mellowed, but the excitement is still there, quiet and steady, like an old friend who never quite disappears.

Maybe adulthood isn't so bad, after all.

As long as there are books, and little shops where time slows down, where worlds still exist beyond the page, where I can still lose myself.