On the bench next to me sat Jean-Marc who I have known for nearly three years. He was reading Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha and we fell into conversation. 

  I put him around forty years old. He’s lean and athletic without being overly so and he occasionally rides a bike through the parc in full cycling regalia. He is a French/English translator, a profession much in demand here in Quebec over the last forty years but lately under siege by AI. And he’s told me his landlord of fifteen years wants him out because of his ridiculously low rent-controlled studio lease. Despite managing to hold the landlord off in court a couple of years now he knows his days are numbered. 

  Sitting there he asks me what I am reading and I show him my tattered travel copy of Campbell’s Creative Mythology. Have you ever had a tattered ‘travel’ copy of a much loved book? It’s a paperback version that has frequently lost both front and back covers and is slowly page by torn and removed page becoming lighter to carry. The key is to get through the first few pages, to stay ahead of the wear and tear, and to make sure it has a comprehensive enough bibliography in back not to leave you stranded three pages short when reaching the end. 

  And the added bonus when overseas is that when the book is finished you can simply toss it in the trash or burn it in a campfire on some exotic beach, thereby freeing up luggage space! 

  Win win!

  Now what was it Jean-Marc was saying? Something about a mystic named David Steindel-Rast and a piece he wrote called ‘Views Of The Cosmos.’ 

  I pull out a pen and jot the information down on the current fraying back page of Creative Mythology and tell Jean-Marc I’ll get around to reading it. 

  If the page survives the day that is. 

  Have you had a ‘travel’ copy of a favourite book? Let’s have some fun with it at omphaloscafe@gmail.com!