The day I met Henry Ford.

::bring bringgg:: the bell on the shop door rang.

A young boy stepped inside, he looked as if he were a little lost puppy. He carefully took a few, short, hurried, steps on the dark stained-wooden floor. He looked like you're typical kid, he had on blue jeans, a green jacket which was unzipped so you could see his red shirt which said “enjoy coke.” on it, he had on a pair of basketball shoes and a baseball cap, underneath which you could see a streak of his dishwater-blonde hair. All this was seen but not observed by the ordinary person-however what the ordinary person would have seen was his piercing blue eyes that seemed more than unnatural-more like impossible. The casual observer would also have noticed his abundance of freckles showered across his cheeks and nose. “angel kisses.” the girl perched on top of a stair railing by the front desk thought.

It was very unusual to get costumers this early in the morning on Saturday- she perceived..but there he was. At her grandfathers bookstore/antique boutique. He looked about her age.. maybe a little older 15 or so- kids her age never came around here. They thought she and her grandfather were odd, maybe even insane...and so being her friendly self she jumped off the railing where she had been seated, intently reading a book, to come say hi.

“Hey! I'm Cassidy, but you can call me Cassie for short. What's your name?” She asked sticking out her hand forcibly.

“”Um...Henry.” he said shyly- he was greatly taken aback by this strange looking-overly inviting girl. Her hair was brown, curly, unkempt, and everywhere, not to mention that it went past her waist. She looked more like a gypsy then anything else, with her odd-mismatched gold jewelry and an old fashioned dress that was at least two sizes too big and looked like something from the early 1900s on steroids.

"Henry... like Henry Ford?" She asked grabbing his hand and shaking it firmly.

"Um...no like, like...just Henry." He replied pulling his hand away and crossing his arms, like he was scared she'd try to shake it again.

"Well I'm going to pretend you're Henry Ford. Is that alright? Because I think it would be sooooo amazing to meet someone famous like that..don't you think? You can pretend you're famous and that you make cars, can't you? Don't you think Henry Ford is a wonderful man?" she said rather dreamily hopping onto an old ladder leaned against a tall bookshelf.

"I, um...I don't know who Henry Ford is." Henry mumbled, shifting his feet around embarrassed.

"YOU DON'T?!? Oh! I read a book ALL about him! Here I'll go ask grandpa about it. I'll be right back..don't like-go anywhere." She looked at him nervously like he might take off any minute. She didn't want him to go, he was nice-even if he was kinda shy. Shy people were the only one's that knew how to really listen.. and she needed someone to listen. Cassie left him for a moment, walking through endless rows of bookshelves lined with every sort of book you could imagine. Fantasies, biographies,  autobiographies, maps, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays, trilogies, books in every language- French, English, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Japanese, Italian, and strange African dialects. Books of every size and shape, paperbacks and hard copies, books in every edition. All from different time periods, different places, some looked brand new, others looked as though they'd been around since the beginning of the world. They were lined to the insanely tall ceiling. Each placed in some weird organizing system along the mismatched bookcases. The whole place had sort of a strange feel. As if-it was from a different time, a different place, it didn't belong in Seattle in October of two thousand thirteen. Maybe in Paris next to a small cafe' in the early nineteen hundreds-not next to a run-down pizza parlor and the corner of 8th and Martin way. Walking into that shop was like walking into another world-a different universe, another decade. You could spend hours looking at books and talking to Cassie and her grandfather or just playing with all the nick knacks and antiques. It was the sort of place you could get your brain wonderfully lost in. 
Henry saw it-he took it in, and he found that he loved it.