Bibliomaniac

Reid Wright is suffering from a strange addiction. No matter where he is or what he is doing he has a compulsive desire to read nonstop. “I can’t take much more of this” Reid whispered anxiously to himself. “Here I am at my job endlessly stacking boxes in this warehouse and I can’t hardly concentrate because all I can think about is how much I need to finish this book”.

As Reid’s supervisor walked by he made himself look busy by continuing to stack boxes on the conveyor belt in front of him. Once his supervisor was out of sight Reid pulled his phone out of his left pants pocket. He unlocked the screen with his passcode and and opened the Amazon kindle app on the bottom right corner of the screen. The first story that came was a story titled Penny Runs Over A Deer. When Reid click on the story it was at page 235 of 280 pages:

“Penny had no idea that running over a deer would get her into this much trouble. Who would have guessed that running over a deer would land her in the path of a viscous psychopath. The man chased Penny as she ran across the street and tripped over the dead deer in the road. As Penny looked back and caught herself she saw-”

“WRIGHT!” Reid’s supervisor yelled. “Boy what are you doin on that phone again? Didn’t I tell you we got eyes all around this joint watching and just waiting for us to mess up? Oh stop bein so dramatic, Selwyn” Reid shrug off. “Ain’t nobody gettin rid of us. Who else is gonna stack these thousand pound bricks you call packages if you pull our cards?” Reid’s surrounding coworkers all started laughing”.

“You know what?” Selwyn sighed. “It’s only four minutes to clock out time. Go head and boogie outta here early and finish reading your book, so you can get it out of all of our systems.” “Whew you ain’t gotta tell me twice” Reid replied with glee. He then quickly hopped up from his station and began walking fast to the time clock to clock out. When he reached the clock he noticed the small line in front of him and it set off his anxiety.

“Come on, come on. Gotta get back to the crib so I can read my- hey would you look at that?” Reid eyed the back of the shirt of the coworker in front of him and saw the lyrics of rapper DMX’s song “Ruff Ryders Anthem”:

Nosy people get it too. When you see me spit at you

You know I’m tryna get rid of you. Yeah I know it’s pitiful

Reid recited the lyrics to himself over and over while feeling an adrenaline rush of satisfaction from reading the brief lyrics. The hint of satisfaction was abruptly broken when he reached the front of the line and it was his turn to clock out. After clocking out Reid frantically ran to his car and hopped in and drove away. “I’m almost home” Reid told himself anxiously.

“Soon I’ll be in my reading cavern and finishing my b-” before Reid could finish his statement his focus shifted to the sticker on the back of the red van in front of him that read:

51% gentleman, 49% douche bag. Don’t press your luck.

A new sense of gratification warmed his body with adrenaline as he recorded the quote to himself over and over again. While reading the sticker Reid was cut off by the sound of a honking horn and he quickly swerved his car to the right as a green jeep nearly collided with him head on. “Oh my goodness” Reid said to himself as his heart raced. I almost just collided with that car because I couldn’t stop reading that sticker. Let me hurry up and get home before this bibliomania kills me.”

Reid finally pulled in my other parking lot of his apartment complex, parked his car with haste and got out while sprinting for his front door. When he made it in the house he kicked off his shoes and jumped on his living room couch with a racing heart eager to continue his reading of Penny Runs Over A Deer:

“-Drew lunging at her with a hunter knife go which she ducked his attempted cut. Penny then looked to her right and 9mm Glock pistol laying on the ground and quickly dove for the gun. Eyeing her making contact with the gun Drew attempted to dive over her and stop her from retrieving the gun, but he was too late. Penny had the gun in hand and pointed at Drew who screamed as she fired three rounds from the gun into his chest. As Drew lie bleeding and near death Penny let out a sigh of relief as she dropped to her knees in exhaust”

Concluding his story, Reid dropped the phone on the floor and payed on his back facing the ceiling with a euphoric sense of satisfaction at having just finished his story. “Damn it feels good to be a bibliomaniac. I love my addiction.” Drew concluded with a smile.