Word: Desuetude

desuetude

[ des-wi-tood, -tyood ]

noun
the state of being no longer used or practiced.

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               The store was empty.  Completely devoid of human life, save for one person, the owner, Henry.  Henry sat slumped in his chair with a vacant look on his weary face.  His seemingly lifeless eyes looked around the store that had not seen a single customer in weeks.  Months, even.  The only people who entered the place were people older than him.  And there were only so many books people older than him could read.

               His mind wandered.  He thought back.  Years ago, his bookstore had been a thriving business.  He sold his wares almost as fast as he could stock the shelves.  Only the local library had been doing better, and then only just. 

               It irked him that the library was still doing well while his account books had more red ink than black.  He knew why.  The library had been able to modernize.  It had things other than books that kept people coming back.  Movies and games and computers and such.  Henry just had books.  Lots and lots of books.

               The problem was that so few people read actual books these days.  His grandkids were evidence enough of that.  He had given each of them books for their birthdays, and not one seemed to care.  They were all more interested in the latest gadget or gizmo.  He had heard that the new devices could have books loaded onto them, but it was simply not the same.

               How could anyone prefer a tiny screen to the real thing?  A phone was small and easy to lose.  It could run out of battery power.  It was damn near unreadable in bright light.  And those screens were just so small.  But a book had none, or at least few, of those problems.  They were much easier to see, and therefore, harder to lose.  They never ran out of batter life, because they had no batteries.  They could be read in all but the dimmest light.  And they could have large print to make them easy to read for any reader.  Yes, books were just better.

               Oh, sure, phones could do things books could not.  But so what?  When it came to simply reading a story, why would you want anything else?  Really, there was no reason to have a phone also be a book when books already existed.  And yet, all the young people wanted nothing to do with the real thing.

               And it all boiled down to Henry doing next to no business.  He used to get the occasional college student looking for cheap textbooks, but even those were electronic these days.  It just made no sense to Henry.  And yet, it was the reality.  And it was staring him in the face each time he saw his complete lack of customers.

               Maybe it was time.  Time to finally admit defeat and close the store.  He did not have much longer anyway.  Pretty soon his lack of business would force his hand anyway.  So why not just give in?  Why prolong the inevitable? 

               He took a deep breath and looked at the books that had sat on his shelves for far too long.  No.  No, he would not close the store.  Not yet anyway.  He would do something.  He would find a way to make his store great again.  Those fancy electronic things would fade with time.  But books?  Books were eternal.  And he would not abandon them, even if everyone else had.

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I admit, I'm guilty of reading books on my phone.  It's how I read them most of the time these days.  I still have real books around, but I don't use them as often as I used to.  Is that bad of me?