The Book Read Free Page A

if he should call Jane. With a twisted lip, he ran a hand through his hair, used his middle finger to carry the beer from inside the bottle neck and tugged his duffle bag to the window with the oversized easy chair that beckoned him to relax in its downy, plush embrace. Maybe later he would watch the game. For now, escaping into the written world of his favorite story was an easier way to ignore his inadequacies.
    Resting on the windowsill was his father’s copy of The Book. It was a first edition, passed down from his grandfather. It had a linen-wrapped, hard cover binding with a thick screen, so that it mimicked a printed book. The antique device reminded him that there had once been a time when people needed an easy transition to such technology. For Holden, there was something romantic about the archaic device. He got settled into the chair and picked up The Book, rubbing the front cover with his thumb. The recycling imprint of the Publishing House was missing from the binding. It hadn’t been mandatory at that time. Holden lifted the cover to reveal the darkened screen. By design, current day Books revived themselves when the cover was lifted. With his father’s Book he had to press the oval button in the corner to ignite the power. He always found a simple joy in that. The worn screen awoke to a plain list of options. Holden felt the thin arrow key on the right side of the device and used it to scroll down to the only author listed.
    The name was J.D. Salinger.
    The preliminary version of The Book stored an unremarkable one thousand mid-sized novels. That didn’t matter to Holden. There was only one story loaded onto the ancient appliance. The same story that had been there when Holden got The Book from their family’s estate lawyer. Apparently, it had been his father’s favorite novel and the origin of Holden’s unique name. After receiving The Book in his father’s will, Holden read it repeatedly, hoping to understand some unknown part of the man. Quickly, The Catcher in the Rye became the standard; the novel by which he judged all others, and the one he always ran to when there was a need to forget the present. He knew those pixels of narrative like the arrangement of tiny, white hexagon tiles on his monotonous bathroom floor. There was an unyielding order to it all and he found comfort knowing what came next.
    Holden switched on the lamp beside his chair and nestled into the worn, single pillow. He sipped gently from his beer and flipped the page, exhaling instantaneous relaxation. And just as he began to read the words he had read so many times before, the screen went from dull green to black. The relic had powered down.
    Aggravated, Holden rose from his comfort, snatched the adapter cord from the wall and plugged it into the binding. No light. No response. The battery was acting up again. He closed his eyes to calm himself and gulped a fifth of his beer before grabbing his new copy of The Book from his duffle bag. But when Holden returned to his seat in search of rest, he noticed that the small, rectangular display built into the leather cover above the recycling icon was breathing a phrase that drove him to toss The Book onto the windowsill, reach for his jacket and leave the apartment in heated frustration.
    That phrase was: Update in Progress .
     
     
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    003-3533
     
     
    Cold rain nagged the window of the cab with a constant, maddening rhythm that seemed to disagree with the swiping wipers. Holden watched them glide silently along the glass as the driver clicked her turning signal and pulled over below the elevated tracks of the Uptown train station.
    Holden paid the woman and stepped into the irrelevant rain. The red door he had opened and walked through so many times before stood ominous beside the shadow of a nearby alley. For John Q. Passerby, there were no windows to shed light on the character of the business. In fact, the building would have appeared vacant if it weren’t for