James and Annie spent an hour, disappearing amongst aisles of dreams free to anyone who sought. Shelf upon shelf, aisle after aisle—neatly arranged more so than any of beginning writing mind, catalogued neatly arranged and composed in an order that was mundane, but efficient, and—once you learned to work within its order—aided in easier finding of escapes and mind-adventures.
James looked at the rows on rows, shelves on shelves, he and Annie the only two, it seemed, in all the place.
“What makes a writer think, of all these, his book or story will be different, and, instead of an oblivion, sought and found.”
Annie smiled, ever the virtue and scale of realist and dreamer. “It probably won’t,” she answered, “but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. There are rewards beyond accolades and grand attentions.”
She kissed him in the aisle, smiling after with brightened green and golden eyes, looking on him and caring little for shelves of dreams that were not hers.
“Rather than hoping to be found by the world; is it not something, too, to be known and loved by one—a world to them, just as those you write. That is something too.”
She kissed him again, and they walked together holding hands, gazing on titles of the dreams.
James drew a novel from its place and kept it in his left free hand.
“What one’s that?” Annie asked.
“The Sound and he Fury.”
“I thought you couldn’t read Faulkner.”
“I haven’t been able to yet. Maybe this time’ll be different.”
“Why are you trying again?”
“It’s Faulkner’s story itself, how he lived for years as a southern farmer. Then one day, he embraced in full his crazy—passion of his purpose—and decided, rather than pretending to be something else, he would devote himself to writing.”
Annie smiled to James, to the open place on shelf and line of further Faulkner creations framing empty space.
“I don’t think it’s crazy,” Annie spoke. “We are what we are. It’s crazy to deny ourselves and force ourselves to be someone and something different. He embraced the sanity that returned him back into his purpose, and the world—or those who love his writing, even if not us—is better for it.
And I don’t think you’re crazy either,” Annie spoke. “I think you’re afraid to live your life fully sane.
Write it all,” Annie told on. “Don’t overthink it. Who cares if the world finds. There are ones who see you, know you by your art, and want drawn into your dreams.
Write them all.”
Annie kissed him light once more, embracing the sanity that is knowing and acting on what one desires: a love, lips, kiss, a life of a way and kind, dream of another, or one’s own composed to page. Movement, action, embracing the sanity of admitting one’s true desires and believed purpose.
She hoped that James would write. She believed in him as she never had another: sanity of embracing life-desires.
After, they walked together, keeping hand in hand. They departing from aisle of dreams and out into the day in movement and commitment to creation and making of their own.