The Junkie: Chapter 1

The Junkie

Now, before you start berating me and sending me off to some support meeting, let me define the phrase fully for you. I know my terminology is a little askew, possibly politically incorrect, and maybe even downright offensive. I've most likely heard all you're going to say, so please, just let me say my piece before you make any further assumptions.

I am a junkie, most likely the best you'll find. I can do it anywhere, anytime, anyplace. I can even go about my business on the playground and never get a look my way. I'll do it in the coffee shop, in the local park, in a church, in a library. Especially in a library. I'm what you might call a word junkie.

That's right, a word junkie. Even the name gives me some sweet chills up and down my spine. You wouldn't believe the pleasure the word lackadaisically or effulgence gives me. All I have to do is just think about the letters and bam! Instantaneous gratification. (That was a good one….) The longer the better. I'll even deliberately take my time reading a sentence over and over until the shock of its sweet undertone wears off. There is no higher pleasure than watching the words flow across the page, sweep across my mind, the processes which fire across the gray, slimy coils in my brain… it's magic, I tell you.

The best part about my addiction is the ease of access. No one can tell that I'm getting high off of the thick volume laying across my lap as I wait on the train. They can't understand. Even newspapers can incur such volumes of feeling that sometimes I'm completely swamped with the effort of continuing to look indifferent. Sometimes I'll even miss my stop just because of a character with such harmony in his name that I can't bear to tear myself away from the chain of letters that make his flesh.

I think I'm the only person ever to be kicked out of the library, or to be denied for that matter. Can you believe that they wanted to close at eleven? How dare they! Oh well, I suppose they can't be pardoned, they did look very tired. Nevertheless I lie awake that night looking at the ceiling, thinking of how many words were locked away inside the marble halls, how many letters, how many commas, exclamation marks, quotations….

It's not that I don't have any books of my own. In fact, I have so many that there's nothing else to do but facilitate myself further. Books make just as good reading material as they do tables. I'm still trying to figure out how to make the best chair. (Charles Dickens makes a very good seat. Although most comfortable so far has been Othello.) Friends are bewildered, winding through my home sideways, squashed between a mountain of travel volumes and mythological anthologies. My home is not one for claustrophobics.

Like every good addict, my entire paycheck is devoted to feed my ever-growing addiction. Besides the obvious unavoidable needs for food and other necessities, I am forever searching for new gems hidden between two stout covers, searching and searching, but for what, I haven't the slightest idea.