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Space


            “I wonder how thin paper can possibly be," wondered the customer.
            “Oh, oh,” bumbled the salesman, “Quite thin.” He pointed to a sample — pages gilded silver. Smelling of violet and primrose, of seaweed and sand. Of a thousand unknown and impossibilities, like a library.
            “I must fit my personal library into the space I have,” the customer demanded.
            “Oh yes, oh yes, I would expect nothing less,” the salesman observed, eyebrows spread. Dragonfly wings.
            “How much space do you have, sir, for your library?” The salesman queried, extending a particularly slender finger.
            “Space!” the customer chuckled. “Well what do you mean by that vague sort of word? I would hardly expect one like you to use a word like that.”
            Silence.
            “You just used the word ‘space.’”
            “Yes, yes,” agreed the customer impatiently, “but my idea of space is rather different than yours, don’t you think?”
            “Well, I don’t know,” the salesman looked longingly out the window.
            “How so?”
            “Quite! I agree! Now let’s not stand around any longer old chap, how thin can we get this paper, because I don’t have much space at all, and in fact I have no space. But,” the customer went on, “I must have a personal library with E.E. Cummings and Eliot and the Bronte sisters. All the best fellows have personal libraries,” the customer paced frantically about, “And if I’m not a best fellow then I don’t know who is.” He halted. “Do you have a personal library?”
            The salesman guffawed. “Well, of course —“ his face fell. Chocolate souffle, fresh from the oven. “No, I mean, yes, I mean — I am a best fellow as well, so I must, haven’t I?”
            “Are you a best fellow?” The customer loomed over the salesman now, eyeing his toupee. “Are you? Because I’d hate to purchase my personal library without the aid of a best fellow! My my,” he thought for a long while, “That would not do at all! That would be a rubbish way to begin a personal library.” He spat out the last few words.
            “Say, what are some other paper manufacturers around here?”
            “This is it, sir.” The salesman gulped.
            “Well, where do the other best fellows get their paper for their personal libraries?”
            “Here, sir.”
            “But this paper is not thick enough!” The customer complained.
            “It is for people who have. . . space?” The salesman offered timidly.
            “Ah! I told you to stop using that word!” The customer made a fist. “You mean a different thing than I mean when you use the word ‘space,’” he scowled.
            “No, I don’t! What other sort of space is there?”
            “Well, what kind of space do you have?”
            “The usual sort, I suppose.” The salesman waved his arms about.
            “Stop that waving about — you’re not a windmill, I’m a windmill!” The customer stood very still.
            “Ah,” the salesman grunted in disgust. “Windmills don’t stand still. You’re perfectly wrong about everything! Get out!”
            The customer’s eyes lit up. “Out? I can’t get out. I don’t know what you mean. And if you mean I should leave, well, I cannot. I cannot leave without my personal library and the right paper for it.”
            “I don’t have the right paper,” argued the salesman.
            “Why yes you do it’s right here —“ pointing toward the usual printing paper, “golly! You've been lying to me this whole time, haven’t you! That’s a salesman for you if I've ever seen one. You’re a fox —“ The customer pointed. “Yes, you.”
            The salesman’s cheeks became quite pale. “Well don’t look so glum. I’ll buy some of your paper after all, seeing as you need some decency in your life, eh? Yes,” continued the customer, “I can always tell when a chap has no decency at all.”
            Silence.
            “Pitiful,” the customer spat, stroking various samples of paper, “So is this parchment, or papyrus, or paper? And what are the measurements?”
            The salesman climbed up upon a bookcase and demanded in a quivering voice, “Sir, get out of my respectable institution this instant.”
            “Why!” exclaimed the customer, “how rude!” His expression was thoroughly aghast.
            “I believe I will. If all the ‘best fellows’ have personal libraries and if you have a personal library, then I don’t believe I want a personal library after all!” The customer back away, putting two and two together. “Besides,” he said, scooting out the door,
            “I haven’t the space for it.” 

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