sure I get lost at times.. don't you?

 I was in a bit of a dilemma. The map had lost me like usual when I came across a bookstore. Now. If it was a normal bookstore, I would have been okay. I mean normal bookstores or the corporate bookstores I could easily walk down and check yep got that nope. Is it an interesting book? Check the book’s first chapter if it holds me. But what I had found was a bit more than the 10 minutes I had before I was supposed to be upstairs in some sort of meeting.

The question was how much could I get through before they needed me upstairs and would I be able to present without preparation? This was not much of a dilemma. I went in and started down the shelves with what looked like the most interesting books, discovering books all the way back to the 1890s on poetry, and some dime novels. Then I hit a shelf where maps and what looked like personal journals were located.

Now the issue was closing in on my 10 minutes and my dash upstairs to present. I changed it by opening one journal. Woo.. I think I lost an hour of time. The tale told was something beyond me. I purchased the book and went to do my presentation close to an hour late. I got to the meeting and of course they were waiting. Now since I was a junior analyst, I think they thought I would apologize to them. This presentation was to show that they had wasted more money than planned and they did not care and to be honest I knew they knew already what I was to present so I went into the presentation without so much as a sorry and then asked for any questions. When they did not have any. I pointed out that the last program would be 300k over budget and five months behind schedule. Then added if there is nothing more I need to go.

Some people think no, you would be more worried about reality. That was their reality. I was more interested in getting back to the book I just started to read.

Now the mystery of the book was no author or date outside of dates recorded in the book on stories being told, and they were all out of schedule, meaning one story did not follow chronological order after another. One would happen and then somehow I would read a year earlier or later the next story would happen, but according to the writer it was like the next day. 

Now people would say what about your job wasn’t at stake? Sure. I was always worried about telling the truth. But I was more interested in the story being told and why the mystery of dates did not match but according to my memory some topics on dates like world wars, both those in 19 century and 18th century the story in the middle of it had a map. I was wild to read the map.  

Then a chapter on what really happened seemed to appear out of nowhere. Now to the readers of this, the story makes no sense unless you realize who I was or what I did. And I was who I am now. I was an extremist. Someone you would expect to be more concerned with spelling, yet in that day and age I had lost my memory and thoughts. Meaning well for the world of me I was spelling took toke. Why? I do not know. However, now I know. 

That the map told me what was at stake was wild. It seemed to open a reality of no return that I was not expecting to find.

A key event in the story happened I realized something. I knew the author of the freaky book.

If that was not enough of a shock. I had spent the last six hours at a cafe near the bookstore and they wanted to close.

Now, you must understand something. Ordinarily I am the most common person you would come across.  However, I instead of leaving and driving five hours to my next meeting tomorrow. I struck up a conversation with the waitress and well.

We both started talking books and the old bookstore. She was an interesting lady.

I made a call. And changed my meeting from tomorrow to the following day. And ended up on the floor reading out-loud parts of the book to her.  The following day I went back to the bookstore and spent hours there.