BORDERS: A Wake

So as I am sure you have noticed, there is no more BORDERS. As a corporation they no longer exist save for the poor souls in offices signing the loads of paperwork that I am sure accompany the ending of a company. They are closed after, “40 years of igniting the love of reading in generations of customers.” (Mike Edwards, CEO) While most of us shrugged and walked on, moving forward with the inevitability of it, there are those of us who will mourn. It’s only natural when something that we cared about leaves us. Why did they go under? What happened? Well the CEO in an email to subscribing customers said this, “In a nutshell, following continued negotiations and the best efforts from all parties, no bidders presented a formal proposal to keep our company operating as a going concern.” Essentially, BORDERS went under because nobody was willing to save them. Granted, it would have been a financial risk, I understand that. Books, it has been said, are dying. In the world of mass media and Nooks and Kindles and visual over-stimulation, not as many people read books for simple recreation anymore. Why bother, when you could just buy the e-book on Amazon?

I, for one, adored BORDERS. The one in Turkey Creek was my favorite. I enjoy attending midnight premiers of movies, decking out in costume and enjoying the movie with the hard-core fans. After eating, we’d have hours to spend before the line even started, it’s 9pm on a weeknight, where else was there to go? Even in costume, people glanced but didn’t stare and there’s something kind of peaceful about being among your own people. I’d spend hours in BORDERS, perusing the isles, buying tasty beverages I could get from my own place of work for free, utilizing the free wi-fi to create literature of my own, browsing the graphic novels and hoping one day I’d be able to afford all the many titles that I wished to own. From time to time, I’d find something on clearance that I couldn’t pass up. You know, like a paper weight that was made out of glass and glowed in the dark. (I never said I was practical) I’ve gone to midnight book releases at that store, discovered new authors, bought beautiful notebooks that are now full of stories of my own, I bought my first Moleskin notebook there. I could spend the day just being there, writing, because there is something about that place, about any bookstore that fosters creative energy, ignites it, or at least it does for me.

I told a friend that they were closing and she said, “Oh no. I love that place, it’s a great place to hang out.” I felt my heart sink a little. I suppose that was a part of the company’s problem, it was a great place to hang out. I thought back on every excursion I took there. More times than not it wasn’t to buy something and I wasn’t alone in that. There were teenage girls looking at the young adult section, giggling over the puzzles and pencil holders that featured beautiful and unobtainable boys. There were grown men taking over entire tables in the cafe to write business proposals. There were students (usually medical) who sat for hours doing research and homework. There was a young man I knew who would go there and read books every week and never had any intention of buying them because he never had to.

So when I found out that they were closing their doors, I mourned. My little brother scoffed at my strange attachment to a corporation. It’s not so much the corporation as what the corporation was, what it stood for. It was a bookstore. I’d mourn if any bookstore was closing, much less one in which I spent so much time. I am a bookworm, I have been my entire life. I read Romeo and Juliet in third grade and even though I didn’t understand all of it, I could appreciate the beauty and magnificence of the story. I would read in class in fourth grade because I had read ahead and already knew what the teacher was talking about. (Yeah, I was one of those kids) I was scolded for doing so and because I told him that it wasn’t smart to discipline somebody for increasing their knowledge particularly when the subject that he was teaching on was something I had already read about extensively, he gave me detention and didn’t let me go into the gifted program since it required the student’s teacher to provide a recommendation. I found it highly ironic now, but then I was angry. He told me specifically that it was because I had been disrespectful by reading in class and had argued with him in front of the other students, not because I wasn’t qualified. Nice. It didn’t dissuade me from reading. So I have always had a soft spot for books and as a result for the vendors who sold them.

As with any ‘going out of business’ situation, there was a ‘going out of business’ sale. I went once a week. One particular trip I was able to procure a notebook and all of Shakespeare’s major plays in book form for under twenty dollars at a saving of seventy five dollars. I was beyond ecstatic about that. With each progressive visit, the shelves grew increasingly bare. The Seattle’s Best cafe was gone within a week. The glass partition that separated me from a particularly beautiful barista boy was gone but so, of course, was he. Each empty shelf stood like a sarcophagus paying homage to what once was. I paused among the people walking up and down the empty isles, searching silently. There were little huddles as they searched out something familiar, something friendly in the somethings that were already gone. I hing my head and chuckled, I knew this scene all too well. This was more than a sale. This was a wake.

So the pictures within this blog were taken the day after they closed. I went to visit one last time and anything that I recognized was gone and the inside was empty and barren. A place that had caused me so much happiness was now eerie and quiet. I peeked through the glass doors, carefully reading the quotes that I had almost forgotten were there. I had hoped that like my beloved Knoxville Pearl, BORDERS would pull up out of its nosedive and remain open, but it wasn’t to be. It broke my heart and in the corner of the window was a sign that said: Coming Soon: The Ham Store. I scoffed and fumed. That would be the story of my life, something I once adored gets replaced not by something similar or enjoyable, but by something I’d rather never step foot through the doors. I hate ham. I hate ham so much.

So now it’s over. BORDERS is gone. Mind you, directly after leaving Turkey Creek, I went over to Barnes and Noble and walked through the isles. They weren’t so different really and if I squinted just enough it was like being in BORDERS again. I promptly got a Barnes and Noble card and resolved that it was going to be all right. Maybe I was being overly sentimental, but maybe I’m not the only one. A girl next to me accidentally pulled out her BORDERS card as she was paying. I looked over as she blushed and she looked at me. I smiled sadly and she nodded, almost like she understood. I mourn BORDERS in my own way as does anybody. I’m not sure which stage I am in the cycle of grief, but I am pretty sure I am nearly to acceptance.